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HE AMERICAN HOUSE TODAY

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THE AMERICAN HOUSE TODAY

KATHERINE MORROW FORD
^^</ THOMAS H. CREIGHTON

REINHOLD PUBLISHING CORPORATION 330 west 42nd street, new york. us. a

REINHOLD PUBUSHING CORPORATION

Printed in the U. S. A.
by Civic Printing Company from
type set by Nu-Type Service
Binding by Russell-Rutter Co., Inc.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 2

CHAPTER 1. THE PROGRAM

Introduction 6

Houses for Various Family Sizes (9 houses) .... 8-28

Special Requirements (8 houses) 29- 51

Vacation Houses (4 houses) 52- 61

Subdivision Houses (6 houses) ' . 62- 77

CHAPTER 2. THE SITE

Introduction 78

Houses and Their Sites (10 houses) 80-108

CHAPTER 3. SPACE ORGANIZATION

Introduction 109

Space Relationships (9 houses) 111-133

Expansion (2 houses) 134-138

Indoor-Outdoor Relationships (4 houses) 139-151

CHAPTER 4. ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

introduction 152

Use of the Natural Environment (9 houses) .... 154-178

Control of the Environment (3 houses) 179-183

CHAPTERS. CONSTRUCTION AND MATERIALS

Introduction 184

Construction Methods (5 houses) 186-198

Use of Materials (4 houses) 199-205

Prefabrication (3 houses) 206-207

CHAPTER 6. APPEARANCE

Introduction 208

Regions, Theories, and Personalities (9 houses) . . . 210-234

INDEX 235

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS 239

III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank the following publications for permission

to use photographs which have appeared or will appear in their

pages as a result of special arrangements with the architects and

assignments to the photographers.

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD

House in Andover, Massachusetts; Bernard Kessler, architect; photos,

Joseph W. Molitor.

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

House in Denver, Colorado; Victor Hornbein, architect; photos. Photog-
raphy, Inc.

HOUSE & GARDEN

Cochran house, Baltimore, Maryland; Alexander S. Cochran, architect;

photos, Andre Kertesz.

Brandon house, Pleasontville, New York; David T. Henken, designer;

photos, Andre Kertesz.

Kamphoefner house; Raleigh, North Carolina; Henry L. Kamphoefner,

architect; George Motsumoto, associate; photos, Andre Kertesz.

HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

Blackmun house, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Thorshov & Cerny, architects;

photos. Photography, Inc.

Challman house, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Thorshov & Cerny, architects;

photos. Photography, Inc.

Huistendahl house, San Diego, California; A. Quincy Jones, architect;

photos, Maynord Parker.

Share house, Los Angeles, California; Harwell Hamilton Harris, designer;

photos, Maynord Parker.

LIVING FOR YOUNG HOMEMAKERS

Roen house, Orlando, Florida; Alexander Knowlton, architect; photos,

Tom Leonard.

PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURE

Clark house, Kansas City, Missouri; Runnells, Clark, Waugh and Motsu-
moto, architects; photos. Gene Hook.

Chapman house, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Robert W. Vohlberg (Vohi-
berg. Palmer, Vohlberg), architect; photos, Meyers Photo Shop.
Rayburn house. White Plains, New York; Edward D. Stone and associates,
architects; photos, Lionel Freedmon.

Ruhtenberg house, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Jan Ruhtenberg, designer;
photos, Guy Burgess.

THE MAGAZINE OF BUILDING (ARCHITECTURAL FORUM)

Burkes house, Portland, Oregon; Pietro Belluschi, architect; photos, Roger

Sturtevont.

Moore house, Portland, Oregon; Pierto Belluschi, architect, photos, Roger

Sturtevont.

Frank Sharp Company house, Houston, Texas; MocKie and Komrofh,

architects; photos, Dorsey & Peters, and Hence Griffith.

THE AMERICAN HOUSE TODAY

INTRODUCTION

"Books on Archifecfure are already so numerous thaf adding fo fheir number
may be thought to require some apology. . . ."

The American Builder's Companion, or a New System of Architecture, Particularly
Adapted to the Present Style of Building in the United States of America; by Asher
Benjamin, Architect and Carpenter, and Daniel Raynard, Architect and Stucco
Worker; Boston, Etheridge and Bliss; 1806.

The authors of this present book (the authors of the text, that is; the real authors are the
architects whose work is illustrated) do not apologize for adding to a literature on architecture
which Messrs. Benjamin and Raynard considered excessive in 1806; a quiet revolution has
taken place in residential design in the last decade which deserves to be documented rather
fully. Revolution, not evolution, because the wrench has been violent, if usually polite. Not
entirely a bloodless revolution, either, because a good many architectural heads have fallen
in the process and the cries of anguish that still rise from some parts of the profession ring
through the crumbling colonades. Briefly, the revolt has done this: it has swept away the need
for thinking in static terms of tightly enclosed, inward-looking rooms; and it has substituted the
privilege of using free, open, outward-looking space. This has implied both a technical and
an emotional readjustment.

The odd thing about this revolution is that it has not been widely or generally understood,
despite increasing attention to its results on the part of the consumer press and exclusive
concern with its development on the part of the professional journals. The average house-
buying or house-building citizen still sees what has happened architecturally only in its watered-
down version (the ranch house; the picture window) and in certain cliches and tricks of design
that have nothing to do with the broad move that has taken place. Yet, historically, we have
gone through a complete phase of design change and are ready for the next development.

Forgetting appearance for the moment, it is a peculiar thing that the American public has
remained so generally ignorant of the possibilities that are open in the technology of
housing. Study, for instance, the house designed by Raphael Soriano on page 196. Then
compare it with the houses that are being built in your own neighborhood. It doesn't matter
whether or not you are prepared to accept the new esthetic wholeheartedly; the point is that
. Soriano's study of construct/on possibilities merely begins to scratch the surface of what is

within reason today, and yet how many of the hundreds of thousands who will buy or build
homes this year i<now anything about that potentiality? It is as though a public wanting and
needing automobiles were shown a model of the latest car and then told, "But you can't have
that; it's the original 1910 model (with new tires and a beautiful horn, of course) that we're
really going to sell you."

We simply want to make the point that the general level of design, the general technical
backwardness of construction, the general similarity of the houses being built now with those
built in 1940 or even 1920, do not refute the fact that a revolution has been taking place
behind the scenes. Although it is still necessary in all but a few communities to hunt through
unfamiliar streets to find the good modern house (it has become too easy recently to find the
bad imitation modern ones) there are by now several thousand home owners in the United
States who have profited from the advances architecture has made in our time. That is not
very many when almost a million "housing units" are being built each year, but it is enough
to indicate that the contemporary movement is not a transient thing.

There is not an architectural student graduating from school these days who is trained in the
traditional mannerisms, and scarcely an architect under forty would happily design a "period"
home. It was not difficult to find examples for this book from all parts of the country, and it
became necessary, because of space limitations, to give up hope of using many, many other
good houses from various regions. This was not true a few years ago; that it is true today is
another indication that the revolution has been a successful one. So successful, in fact, that
many architects and critics feel that it is now time, not only to consolidate the gains made, but
to go on to the next stages of development.

Through this book, under various headings, we shall attempt to explain what those gains
have been; what the issues are that have been battled. Before that, it might be well to look
briefly at the background of the revolt and try to place it in relation to other events of the
time. And at the very beginning of that backward look it is necessary to make once more
the oft-repeated point that all good architecure is modern architecture, in its own time— that
the standards for good design and good planning remain constant through the ages. Good
architecture sits well on its site; that is modern. Good architecture functions well for the people
who use it; that is modern. Good architecture makes the best possible use of materials and
construction methods that are available; that is modern.

The sociological change that has affected the pattern of family living in our time would have
bad to affect the design of houses, if we were to have a modern architecture of our own at
least as good as the modern architecture of earlier ages— and it did. Similarly, the new
materials of our time would have had to influence construction methods and over-all design
unless we wanted to ignore the architectural possibilities— and to a limited extent they have.
Thus the architectural revolution of recent years has not thrown overboard the basic principles
of design. On the contrary, it has reestablished them, when they were almost lost.

The historical background of mid-twentieth century architecture (and that includes the archi-
tecture of houses) is inextricably interwoven with the cultural history, the economic and political
history and, most important, the technological history of the nineteenth century. By the end
of that century we had harnessed electricity for use in the home, the sanitary plumbing system
and the central heating system had been developed, the internal combustion engine was
working, an airplane had flown the Atlantic, and an automobile had gone right straight across
the country. Engineers had shown that great new designs were possible with steel construction
and reinforced concrete construction; abroad. Gamier and Perret and later LeCorbusier
were developing new forms in the new materials; in the United States, Louis Sullivan was trying

to find a better solution to the new American building type— the skyscraper— than piling
Roman temples on one another, and Frank Lloyd Wright was designing houses that
"organically" fitted into the midwest landscape. In painting and sculpture artists were break-
ing from the classic tradition to play with original primitive art patterns and to break compo-
sitions down into color arrangement and form relationships, in a search for the fundamentals
of creative expression.

A great deal of this is negative in its character; presumably it was a clearing of the boards
for a great surge forward, comparable to the advances in the early Romanesque period,
the Gothic of the thirteenth century, and the powerful impetus of Brunelleschi and later
Michelangelo when the Renaissance of architecture began in Italy. But in the United States
of the twentieth century this did not happen. For various reasons (isolationism, smug self-
satisfaction and a verging on imperialism among them, it must be admitted) we continued
to build banks in the Roman style, schools in the Tudor style, and houses that were weak
imitations of the Colonial houses our forefathers had built or, worse, imitations of earlier
Georgian houses from England, Spanish houses from nowhere on this earth, French chateau
houses from imported books, and Renaissance palaces from Italy.

We did not even recognize Frank Lloyd Wright in this country until we heard about him from
Europe. The strong moves abroad toward industrialization and simplification which culminated
in the educational experiment at the Bauhaus in Desseou under Walter Gropius were literally
unknown to us until some of the people connected with these movements came to the United
States between the two World Wars. It became, ultimately, a pent-up situation where
architecture in the United States was bursting with possibilities and there was certain to be
an explosion, which came, finally, in the thirties. The result of all the frustrated emotion on
the part of the progressive, alert designers was that it came not in any easy way but as a
crusade, a revolution, a cause. There developed two camps: the traditionalists who refused
to recognize that we had a technology of our own, that we had the philosophical background
for an esthetic of our own, that we could and should have an architecture of our own; and
the modernists, who refused to talk to anyone but themselves, who formed almost a cult with
a language unto itself. The poor public was obviously and understandably confused.

So it was not until the late thirties and early forties that anything which could be reasonably
called a contemporary movement in architecture had developed in the United States. In
contrast to the choice of material available for this book, when one of the present authors
collaborated on a book about residential architecture in 1940* it was a matter of discovering
unrecognized talent, of searching for liftle-known work. And discovering that not very much
worth consideration existed except in a few parts of the country, chiefly on the east and west
coasts. However, many architects in other sections of the country were feeling their way
toward the new objectives.

Now that the lessons seem to have been learned by almost all of the younger architects and
many of the older ones, and now that good contemporary houses exist by the thousands in
the United States, it seems time to analyze the path we have trod and to take inventory
of and consolidate the advances that have been made. Although it is still possible to buy
magazines and books which dismiss "modern" as another style, to be chosen or discarded at
will along with Colonial and Ranch House and Cape Cod, no aware person can really doubt
that modern architecture in our time, as in any time, is as desirable and inescapable a
phenomenon as modern medicine, education, transportation, business administration, or dress.

'The Modern House in America; James and Katherine Morrow Ford; Architectural Book Publishing Com-
pany, Inc., New York, N. Y.

If it is true that any good architecture, recognizing the influences of its own time in history,
must be based on those influences as well as the difference between them and the influences of
other times, what are the factors we should look for to explain our own present-day residential
architecture? They seem to fall into ihe following categories.

The program: produced by sociological changes. The ways we live are different from the ways
people lived in other times, and this perforce alters the premise from which the architects
begin designing, and thus affects the ultimate solution.

The site: the relationship to nature, affected by sociological and psychological considerations.
From a necessary closeness to natural phenomena and the good earth in the Colonial period,
we have gone through an almost cynical neglect of land use. Recently a new strong desire to
extend the useable living space to the borders of one's property (and in some instances to
develop cooperative use of common property) has been apparent.

Space organization: a three-dimensional translation of the program, in terms of the site;
influenced by physical and emotional factors. The Romans turned their rooms in, to an atrium;
the Georgians wished a series of stately rooms connected by grand halls. We prefer to turn
our houses out to the sun and the land, and we let space merge with and flow into adjacent
space. Our technology makes this possible.

The environment: the manner in which we utilize or avoid the natural environment and create
our own interior climate; the result of scientific study and the manufacture of equipment. Where
earlier peoples learned some aspects of environmental control by trial and error, we have at
hand voluminous information based on pure and applied research. Results of this knowledge
are beginning to appear and to affect design.

Construction and materials: ihe technology of the industrialized period in which we live,
applied to building methods; in conflict with business, trade union, and even professional
traditions which linger in the building industry, so that even elementary standardization of parts
has not yet been achieved; unresolved in its effect because of the difficulty of mass-producing
as personal a thing as a home.

Esthetics: the visual result of the integration of all other factors; affected by traditional associa-
tions OS well OS changing use-patterns; influenced to some extent by regional backgrounds;
complicated by a conflict between a rational scientific attitude and an almost romantic
emotional regard for the use of space and materials.

These are the things that should produce today's houses. Once more we turn back to Benjamin
and Raynard and their book on architecture published in 1806; this is what they had to say:

"The first thing to do in planning a house, is to know the wants of the person who
is to occupy it; the next, to know the situation of the ground it is to cover; then to
take into consideration the number, size, and height of the rooms wanted; also,
proper and convenient stairs, entries, passages, etc. . . . The eye ought to see, at
the same time, every part of the building, and be sure that no one part of it inter-
feres with another; also to see that the rooms are properly lighted . . . Strength,
convenience and beauty are the principal things to be attended to."

That seems to us a good enough outline for a book on houses. We begin, then, with a dis-
cussion of today's house in relation to "the wants of the person who is to occupy it . . ."

THE PROGRAM

A house is not an abstract object; planning a house cannot be an essay in non-objective design.
Houses are for people to live in, and people are very different one from another. It doesn't
make a great deal of difference whether a house is designed for a stout person or a thin one,
a tall one or a short. It does matter whether it is to be occupied by a bachelor, a childless
couple, or a family with boisterous small children. And it is very important, in designing the
house, to know how the occupants are going to live— what social pattern their lives will conform
to, or perhaps revolt from.

When he begins designing a house, an architect must have a progrom— a statement of the
basic needs and desires of the client he is designing for. And when one looks at and judges
a house as architecture, there should be some knowledge of what that program was. You can
say, "I think that house is beautiful," or, "This house is very unpleasant," only when you know
what sort of persons live in the house, and what the special requirements were when it was
designed. And if someone is planning to build he can learn from his observation of houses he
has seen and his knowledge of how personal requirements may be interpreted and executed
by an architect. To take as an example the first house that follows in this book: Philip Johnson's
house in Connecticut is one to which people have sharp reactions. Many visitors don't like it—
"It's a glass cage; it has no privacy; it doesn't look warm or cozy." But Philip Johnson is a
bachelor with a sophisticated taste in all the arts— including the art of living. The house is
isolated in a country setting. His guests enjoy the feeling of complete openness to the outdoors,
as he does. The house suits him perfectly; it would not satisfy certain other people.

Every thoughtful architect begins his design job by a series of discussions with the client which
are almost a psychoanalytical process. How do you live? Wbaf are your inferests? Do you reod
in bed? Do you like fo garden? Do you play the piano? Do you entertain? Do you do your
own houseworlt? The program can become extremely explicit. We have recently seen a four-
page manuscript submitted by one of his clients to Henry Hill, several of whose houses are in
this book, which started off, "Here is a story of how we live ..." It was a very candid analysis of
a way of life, and a most successful house is resulting. Not all programs that an architect can
extract from his clients are so revealing. The other extreme, of course, is the house built for
sale, in which case the designer of the house, not knowing who the ultimate occupants will be,
must devise his own program. It is a problem which will be discussed separately, but it is
important to note here that the general program is now a very different one from what it was
a generation ago, and a radically different one from the "prototype" house of any other
period in the history of man's social development. We aren't the same people we used to be,
and we don't deserve being pushed into houses that no longer fit our needs.

What are those social needs? This book is not a sociological treatise, and we will not go into
detail about the family life of today. (While most individual houses are designed for families,
the reader will find a number of examples in this book of "bachelor" houses, male or female;
this is in itself an indication of social change. In previous times an older person might ultimately
have been left alone in the family homestead, but the house designed originally for a single
person to live in is a recent phenomenon). Perhaps the strongest influence of the family pro-
gram on contemporary building is the fact that the home in which one grew up and which one

finally inherited, to live in and in turn to pass on to a later generation, is almost gone. Families
scatter now. Travel conveniences, job opportunities, personal inclinations, a general social rest-
lessness, all tend to make family living, in any one house, a comparatively briefer period.

Another reason for this important architectural fact is that we have learned to enjoy and we
have the facilities to practice, much more full living at each period of our own lives. Sociologists
recognize various phases of a man's life, each with its own aims, desires, ambitions, and needs.
The house (even the community) which suits us in our early married years will not be at all
appropriate as we become more sure of ourselves and more established in a productive
capacity. What is the design answer to all this? If the family with special requirements for
whom we design is going to leave its house in a comparatively few years, is there any point in
designing to those requirements? There are several answers, aside from the one advanced by
a prominent architectural educator: that houses should not be designed for permanence, that
each generation should have the privilege of rebuilding all over again, according to its own
desires. First of all, even the most specially designed house will, if it goes up for sale, find a
new owner with requirements at least approximating the original family's needs. Secondly,
architects, recognizing the problem of the program changing as time goes on, have devised
various ways to make house plans flexible. Notice for instance, how the Eric Sevareid house
designed by Charles Goodman (pages 20 to 21) has been arranged to accommodate itself
to children's needs as they grow up. There are many examples in this book of spaces planned
for one use during an early period and, with minor changes, another use as the family matures.

If the problem of the moving family and the changing family is a tough one for the house
designer, the influence on the program of our mechanical inventiveness is at least as puzzling.
First of all it became clear some years ago that family habits were changing as good clothes,
good food, entertainment, and services such as laundry and pressing became available ouisids
the home almost as economically as they had formerly been provided in the home. Preparation
and work and storage spaces became less important. As the movies and the automobile made
distant recreation more appealing than the home-made kind, even spaces for social gatherings
seemed less useful than they had been. But then manufacturers began producing fairly inex-
pensive, easy-to-use clothes-washing and ironing machines, garbage disposers, dish-washers,
deep-freeze food-storage units, and finally— the television set. New places to store equipment,
and to use it, became necessary in the house plan. The large gathering in the living room
(perhaps now to look, rather than to talk) again became a planning requirement. Once more,
apparently, flexible planning to care for changing requirements is the logical answer.

What does all this add up to? First, designers have recognized the importance of designing
to a progrom — even if it is the broad general program of the "typical" or "average" family's
needs. Even the speculative builder's house or the completely prefabricated house must and
increasingly does fit the ways people live today — more freely, more informally, more dis-
engaged from unpleasant household tasks than ever before. Today's house, if it is to fit today's
needs and try to anticipate some of tomorrow's, must take into consideration the decreasing
family size, the increasing dependence on mechanical devices, and yet — something that
many home builders are inclined to ignore — the continuing need for social contact, for
friendly gatherings, for an intimacy with the soil on which the house is built, and for space
large enough to live and breathe in.

Finally, the lesson of today's rapidly changing civilization, with its restlessness and its occas-
ional discontent, its growing pains as we move from one phase of world history through war
and depressions and wonderful inventions and horrible inventions to another phase, is
undoubtedly that our architecture must be planned for change. It must be flexible and
adaptable, without losing its own character. That is a big order for the house designers.

NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT

The glass house which Philip C. Johnson designed for
himself has the most simple program possible — open
space for a bachelor who likes to live in close rela-
tionship with nature. It is a rectangle defined by all-
glass walls which are framed with delicately scaled
steel members. Although it is consciously subdivided
into areas for conversation, dining, and sleeping, the
division is accomplished by cabinets and cupboards,
by the location of a piece of sculpture and a painting,
and by the placement of furniture. Thus the house is
really one large room, with a circular brick core, ten
feet in diameter, containing the bathroom and the
fireplace. Over-night guests ore taken care of in a
separate brick structure. This is as near to living
outdoors as one can come. The glass walls keep out
the rain and the cold, and at the some time make
it possible for the house to be fully exposed to the
surrounding natural landscape. Although Mr. Johnson
says he has no interest in artificial control of environ-
ment {"I dont believe in it; I like my environment,"
he says) the house is radiant heated with coils in
floor and ceiling. This solution to the bachelor-house
program is admittedly a highly personal one. The
rigid allocation of functions, the unchangeable place-
ment of furniture, and above all the selection of the
objects, of furniture and of art, which give the gloss
cube Its character, all reflect the interests and the
individual taste of the owner-designer.

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PHILIP C. JOHNSON, DESIGNER

SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA

Nestled into a rock ledge on a high point overlooking
San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate, this house
was also designed for a bachelor whose major require-
ments were casual living and informal entertaining.
The three levels are stepped down the ridge to afford
protection from gales and fogs; two bedrooms are at
the middle level and completely private from enter-
tainment and callers at the top level, which contains
the main living area and compact kitchen. A dark
room and heater room are at the lowest level. Stor-
age space over the kitchen has access from the car-
port. The owner, William Crocker, so enjoyed the
rugged beauty of the site that he avoided any land-
scaping and kept the natural setting of outcropping
rocks and wild grasses. An open deck extends the
apparent size of the living room by winging out
toward a spectacular view of the Boy and the beauty
of the countryside. The generous size of the living-
dining room is further expanded by floor-to-ceiling
window walls opening to the northeast and southwest.
These walls ore weatherstripped against cold infil-
tration while the overhangs are at a minimum so as
to capture all possible sunlight. Exterior is of Cali-
fornia redwood. All floors are bleached oak, except
the bath and kitchen which ore rubber tile.

a. _

SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA, continued

Well-equipped kitchen is partially screened from dining area for ease in entertaining.

View side of house adapts itself to the rugged natural landscape and rocky ledge.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA

Designed for professional occupations as well as
for living for a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Poul Chap-
man, Jr., this tiny house was a difficult challenge
to the architects. The program was based on an
initial requirement of 600 square feet (exclusive
of the carport) to be designed as a workable
studio-living area. The problem was to plan a
small space to be used dually for work (the hus-
band is an advertising executive and writer; the
wife is a commercial artist) and for family life
and entertaining. At the same time it was essential
to retain some circulation control, to provide north
light for the studio and ample natural light. The
solution arrived at was possible because the house
is for adult use; no children were involved in the
planning. Within this simple rectangular plan par-
tial partitions or cabinets are used to separate
living, sleeping, work, and meal preparation.
Because of the limited budget, the space require-
ments were carefully laid out around existing furni-
ture, which the owners plan to replace with lighter
pieces which will give a freer space concept. The
house was oriented to the southeast, with a sun
control overhang, to take advantage of the good
view in that direction and to make use, in relation
to the house, of the existing trees. Cross ventila-
tion was provided for all spaces. The structure
is a skeleton steel frame, with masonry walls.

ROBERT W. VAHLBERG

(VAHLBERG, PALMER, VAHLBERG)
ARCHITECT

SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA

This house again shows that planning for adults makes
possible some space arrangements which would be
very difficult if small children were Involved. The home
of Dr. and Mrs. Alexander Ker is designed for simple,
easy living. The result appears to be informal —
almost casual — and yet every aspect of the plan is
carefully thought out. For instance, one enters directly
into the living room and from this point reaches other
parts of the house; yet the furniture arrangement is
such that the pleasant sitting area shown in the lower
picture across page is not interrupted by traffic either
to the bedroom or the dining room. Careful atten-
tion has been paid the lighting of the house. At the
juncture of entrance and living room a "light shelf"
in the form of a dropped ceiling continues across the
living room-dining room opening; a spot light atop
the dining room cabinet is adjustable for many uses;
another light shelf runs the length of the north wall
above the storage units. The approach is from the
east side of the house, along a covered walk from
the car shelter, which is screened from the outdoor
use of the site on the south side. By extending the
garage roof and continuing it as a protection for this
walk, a virtue has been made of the closeness of the
hillside. Roof members tie into the hill, and planting

in a raised flower bed acts subtly as a guard against
erosion of the bluff. Particularly pleasant is the devel-
opment of outdoor space in such a way that each
room in the house has its corresponding area outside:
the living room and the adjoining guest bedroom-
study shore a terrace which is sheltered by a vine-
covered trellis (leafy in the summer as a protection
against hot sun, bare of leafage in the winter
to let the worm solar rays penetrate); the master
bedroom opens to its own enclosed garden; the kitchen
and shop moke use of a service yard which is thor-
oughly separated from other ports of the site. As the
photograph of the covered walk shows, the long, nar-
row site borders a bluff, making it logical to close this
aspect of the house except for clerestory windows,
and to use it as a long storage wall. Thus the interior
plan as well as the shape of the house itself were a
result of studying the possibilities and the limitations
of the site. As one might suspect from a study of the
plan, both Dr. and Mrs. Ker are interested in garden-
ing. Particular attention has been given to the prob-
lem of outdoor storage of garden furniture and the
need for a garden work space or potting shed. The
house is so completely fitted to its site that it sits
comfortably as well as beautifully on the hillside.

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FRED LANGHORST, ARCHITECT

Covered Walk.

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SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA

Children and hobbies were major influences in the
planning of this house for Dr. and Mrs. D. M. David-
son. In addition to the usual living and sleeping
quarters, a dark room and a green house were in-
cluded for the family hobbies — photography and
plant culture. Family requirements produced a game
room, adjacent to the living room, which may be
used by the nine-year old son and the ten-year old
daughter as a playroom. Although there is a dining
orea in the living room, a separate breakfast room
opens directly into the kitchen and is often used for
family meals. It is without a door for the convenience
of Mrs. Davidson who does most of the cooking. The
house was placed at a slight angle to the street in
order to capitalize on the view to the south, which is
also the best orientation in this region. An eight-foot
overhang projects over the entire south wall to reduce
th sun load in summer. The house is completely air-
conditioned for summer and winter comfort. The heat-
ing and cooling systems have been so arranged that
one unit supplies living-dining room, breakfast and
game rooms, and kitchen; and the other unit supplies
the bedroom section. The two systems were used for
greater flexibility and operate independently, but can
be used together. Exterior has solid Roman brick
walls in some portions, vertical wood siding in others.

WILLIAM B. WIENER, ARCHITECT

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO

COLORADO SPRINGS, continued

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In designing this house for himself and his family,
Mr. Ruhtenberg had about as complicated a program
of planning for children's requirements as one could
imagine. There are five children; at the time the
house was built three were over twenty years old, one
was sixteen and one eight. The solution was to divide
use of the house so that the adults and the smallest
child have sleeping quarters at the far end; the older
children have bedrooms and a living room at the
other end where they are free to entertain and live
their own lives when they are home; and the family
living and dining rooms lie between for all to use.
This arrangement is possible because of the plan
scheme which raises the older children's quarters up
a half flight above the entrance level, over the kitchen
wing, which is down a half flight. The house is located
in an area where a view to the east, toward the
plains which Ruhtenberg colls his "ocean", vies with
a view to the southwest, toward Pikes Peak and the
Rocky Mountains. The Ruhtenbergs prefer the plains
view, and the house opens gloss walls to the east
and south, thus gaining visually and at the some time
taking advantage of solar radiation (the heating
bill for the house, in a region where winters are very
cold, has never exceeded $95 a year). The construc-
tion is a steel skeleton, with pumice block walls partly
stuccoed on the outstide and simply painted on the
interior. Heating of the lower part of the house is by
forced worm air; upstairs, radiant panels are formed
by warm air circulating through the cores of a
patented concrete slab.

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Above, dining room; at right, living room; outd^oi icnoce
between them is shown on preceding page. Below, kitchen.

JAN RUHTENBERG, DESIGNER

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ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

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CHARLES M. GOODMAN, ARCHITECT

One of the principal problems in planning for a
family with small children is that children grow up
and family needs change. In this house which is
owned by the Eric Sevareids the arrangement of the
childrens' bedrooms and playroom spaces is particu-
larly flexible. The Sevareids hove twin boys; when
they were very young they shared as a nursery the
bedroom to the left of the "ploy court" indicated on
the plan; now they use the larger bedroom to the
right of this play space; ultimately the original nursery
and the ploy court will be used as two bedrooms,
which can be separated for privacy or thrown to-
gether. The house is built into a hillside, facing south,
and the section across page shows how space below
the living room has been used for a large additional
playroom with a sunny terrace in front of it. Almost
all of the other living quarters ore on the main floor.
The adults have a quiet group of rooms to themselves
— a bedroom (lower picture on opposite page), a
study where Mr. Sevareid works on his broadcasts,
and a well-planned dressing space. The living room,
with expansive windows opening to the view and the
sun, merges directly into the dining area, which in
turn is adjacent to an extended deck which has a
screened portion for outdoor dining, as the pictures
below indicate. In construction the house is a wood
frame above the brick walls of the lower floor, cov-
ered on the outside with redwood siding and on the
interior with "drywall" finish — plywood (and in some
places redwood and cypress) which can be maintained
easily — an important factor with small children using
the house as small children will.

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BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

With four growing children — from three to twelve
years old — architect Alexander S. Cochran planned
his own house with forethought for future adaptability
as well as for present needs. Maximum flexibility of
space use was a major consideration. For instance,
when the children ore older their rooms may be
converted: the three-year old daughter's room will
become a part of the parent's suite, by cutting a door-
way through the closet to the bathroom; by removal
of a partition, a spacious guest room will take the
place of two of the boys' rooms; the playroom may
be used as an auxiliary living room for the children
or as a home office for Mr. Cochran. Flexibility in use
was also carefully planned for in the other areas; the
entry hall serves as circulation center and as a gallery
for the exhibition of paintings; the large living-dining
room is scaled for small to large use — from informal
gatherings to occasional formal dining; the combined
kitchen-breakfast room serves both for frequent family
meals and informal guest meals; the playroom is also
used for overflow guest accommodation; the master
bedroom doubles as a study; the heater room includes
shop activity. Orientation on the four-acre rectangular
site allowed placing the house in the north corner,
turning its back to the nearby street and opening up
the entire south side to outdoor areas, where garden-
ing and recreational activities are located. Natural
grade, following the land contour, made possible a
three-level solution which minimizes circulation.

ALEXANDER S. COCHRAN, ARCHITECT

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, continued

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Because Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Cochran, and their
four children, enjoy having many guests — overnight
and otherwise — ease of entertaining, both formal and
informal, was an important requirement. The nucleus
for adult and family parties is the forty-foot living-
dining room and its companion terrace. For the chil-
dren there is the large playroom, also with its own
play terrace adjacent. It may be converted to accom-
modate their overnight guests by the use of folding
beds which are stored in a special closet. In addition,
there is a "tenting" ground at the for end of the site
where the youngsters and their friends may build
forts and play outdoor games. The construction is
basically frame, with vertical cypress siding over insu-
lating sheathing on studs. The lowest level has solid
local stone walls. Structural aluminum columns are
used in the living-dining area. Floors on the grade
are concrete slabs; upper floors are wood on joists;
coverings are flagstone, carpet, cork, synthetic tile.
Interior walls are plywood; ceilings are acoustic and
sand-finished plaster, windows are aluminum case-
ment. The bedroom hall has a thirty-five foot welded
transparent plastic skylight. Gas-fired radiant heat
circulates through slabs on grade and the upper floor
ceiling. Twin exhaust fans for summer ventilation are
located centrally over the stair.

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At left, children's playroom in use. This room has
its adjacent terrace.

LAWRENCE, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

One of the most successful solutions in recent years to the problem
of planning for a family with small children is this house for the
Bert Gellers. Mr. Breuer has physically split a one-story plan into
two parts — a bedroom wing and a living and dining wing —
connected by an entrance hall and porch which lead directly to
all parts of the house. In the bedroom wing things are so arranged
that the entire far end is given over to the children's sleeping
and playroom, so that the young people are not underfoot.
Each child's bedroom has a built-in work desk and plenty of
storage space. The playroom is larger even than the adults'
living room. The problem of communication with the maid's room
at the far end of the house is solved by a microphone system.
The living wing of the house is a simple rectangle entered at a
point between the living and dining rooms, which are separated
from one another merely by a bookcase (which shows at the
right of the picture across page). Kitchen, laundry, and maid's
room are at the end of this rectangle toward the separate garage
and guest-house structure, which forms a screen from the street
for the lawn onto which the living room faces. Visually as well as
functionally the house is tied together at the entrance link by the
fact that roof lines of the two wings slope down from high points
at the extremities to low points at the center of the house.

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MECHANICAL
CORE

LAWRENCE, LONG ISLAND,
NEW YORK - continued

Great thought was given to the use of
materials as well as use of the space in
the children's playroom. The floor is
stone surfaced, so that It is easy to clean
and maintain and will take infinite pun-
ishment from its active users {since this
floor, as all others in the house, is radi-
ant heated, it is warm in winter). The
indoor playroom opens to an outdoor
ploy space, which is readily supervised
from the large living room windows, as
the photograph above indicates.

Special Requirements

The houses on the preceding pages all had special program requirements caused by the
size of the family whose needs were to be accommodated. Two were for bachelors, two
for couples with no one but themselves to plan for, and the remaining five for families with
children of varying ages. This basic factor — the number and the ages of the people who
will use the space — is often the major influence of the program on the house plan; but some
of the most difficult problems, and some of the most interesting results, come from very special
and specific requirements. When one is conducting business at home, when there is a hobby
or an interest which produces unusual space requirements, even when one leads an out-of-
the-ordinory social life, a very particular kind of house will be needed.

There is a controversial aspect to this matter of designing so specifically to a personal
program. Many architects and sociologists and technologists claim that the custom-designed
house is on anomaly, except for the fairly wealthy client. They point to the high cost of
construction, and blame much of it on the attempt to make every house different. They com-
pare the house-building industry to the automobile industry, and make the argument that a
different design for every family's car would increase the cost of an automobile to a fantastic
point — as house construction costs are rapidly becoming fantastic. While the authors of this
book believe that there must be a use of twentieth-century technology in the construction of
houses (the later section on CONSTRUCTION will amplify this), they also believe that those mass-
production construction techniques should adapt themselves to the varied plan requirements
which families may hove— whereas the automobile has the one function of transportation.
For instance, in the Grant house designed by Edward D. Stone and his associates, which is
the next example in this book, the very unusual and special design, growing from the desire
to have space to ploy and relax and entertain, nevertheless makes use of a simple steel
framing system based on a twenty-foot modular spacing.

Not every family wonts or can afford the specially planned provisions for entertainment that
the Grant house has, so this is not the most common special requirement. One more often
found is the need for professional or office space along with the family living accommodations.
Several examples of planning from this sort of program are shown in the houses that follow.
Robert Little, J. R. Davidson, and Hugh Stubbins all combined their architectural office-studios
with their own houses, as many another architect has done. Equally successful solutions might
be found to many similar problems, such as doctors' and dentists' offices.

The reason these office-home combinations present a special planning problem is that there
must be access for the visitor who is business-minded, without interference with family privacy.
A different sort of program is the one calling for a work space or a studio which needs as

much privacy as any other room in the house— the sculpture studio in the Fitz-Gerald house
designed by Wischmeyer & Lorenz (page 39) is one such. Or perhaps a separated room
is not required — merely special provision for a particular activity in another room. An
excellent example of this sort of thoughtful planning is the Lindstrom house by Edgar Tafel,
shown on pages 44-45, where the piano, a very necessary item in this household, has its
very own carefully arranged corner of the living room.

There can be many variations of this aspect of house design. The Harkness house and music
studio by Douglas Honnold (pages 49-51) combined in one problem for the architect the
matter of public entry to the studios; the need of planning for change, as the living quarters
will be converted to additional studios; and the design of a large living room shaped so that
it can be used for concerts, almost as an outdoor orchestra shell. What might have been
a hap-hazard collection of unrelated spaces has been made to be a handsome, integrated
piece of architecture. Obviously there will be many special program requirements, but the
most extraordinary house program con be translated into a successful design result.

GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT, continued

The "special requirement" In the case of the W. T.
Grant house was an unusual cJegree of hospitality,
expressing itself in extensive entertainment and fre-
quent overnight guests. This program and the slope
of the ten-acre site southward toward Long Island
Sound dictated a plan solution which breaks the
house into various levels, and allows a distinct sepa-
ration of master suite, guest areas and service
quarters, with the main living space in the center.
The house is entered from an upper level, with the
entrance court beautifully concealed behind a serpen-
tine brick wall, which the photograph below and the
one on the preceding page show. The main living
space on this entrance level overlooks a large play-
room, which is two stories in height — a great room
with appropriately large-scaled windows looking out
toward the view. Almost all of the rooms take advan-
take of this view, as a matter of fact, and the ingen-
ious terracing of the site to make this possible on the
variously set-back levels is indicated by the plans.

EDWARD D. STONE, ARCHITECT

KARL J. HOLZINGER, ROY S. JOHNSOM, ASSOCIATES

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GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT, continued

The construction of the Grant house is particularly
interesting. A large structural "grid" is the basis of
the system — steel members approximately twenty
feet on centers — and it gives the key to the scale of
the architectural composition. In the straight-on photo-
graph of the "view" side of the house on the preced-
ing page, the steel supporting members can be seen
at every fourth window division. Between grid mem-
bers the structure is v/ood frame, and walls are cypress
or brick. The house is heated by radiant coils in the
ceilings, and the master quarters are air-conditioned.
Interior decoration was by Dan Cooper. A. Lundquist
was the landscape architect.

LIVINGROOM

DINING BOOM

MIAMI, FLORIDA

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When architect Robert M. Little built his own house
he hod a very special requirement of his own — to
have his studio connected to his house, but with
separate entrance and telephone system. He also had
in mind that his son and daughter, although living at
home at the time, would shortly be married and
reside elsewhere. He therefore planned the bedrooms
so that the two front ones could be thrown together
and become the master bedroom, with the original
master bedroom becoming the guest room. The solu-
tions to both of these initial needs have worked out
perfectly according to Mr. Little. The living room,
below, is a screen and glass enclosure in the center
of two patios. The secluded, quiet rear patio is used
for living and entertaining. This combined indoor-
outdoor living arrangement is ideal in the Florida
climate. The front patio is partially protected by the
carport, which connects with the front of the studio
by a covered loggia, and serves as a screen to the

heavy traffic on a highly travelled boulevard. The site
was selected for its easy access to the center of town
and for the well-established trees, such as Banyan,
Pidgeon Plums, and Gumbo Limbo. The tree locations
and their character influenced the plan of the house,
since the architect did not wish to remove any of them.
By retaining them he located the house in relation to
the trees so as to help solve the sub-tropical sun prob-
lem. Orientation and overhangs also contribute to the
sun control. A three-zone system for air conditioning
and heating affords additional environmental control.
A logical construction concept was put into practice by
the architect. He wanted to have the basic wall and
roof construction determine the finishes and avoid as
far as possible the usual labor processes of piling
one material on another. In this house materials are
used which provide their own integral exterior and
interior finishes, such as exposed concrete block,
cement, asbestos board, and glass.

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MIAMI, FLORIDA, continued

Bedroom wing, above, has vented wall of
glass, a wide overhang for sun control.
Screened extension of living room, at right,
increase its width and airiness.

KIRKWOOD, MISSOURI

Primary plan requirement for this minimum house
designed for Mr. and Mrs. Clark B. Fitz-Gerald was a
large studio with north light for the owner who is a
sculptor. The remainder of the house was to be as
open as possible, so planned that large or small
groups could be entertained with equal ease. Also
desired was easy circulation from indoors to outside
living areas, which are used extensively in summer
and fall. The owners, after living in the house, feel
that the design solution has admirably met their
requirements for living, working, and entertaining.
The north and south walls are on a four-foot modular
system. Vertical structural members, on this module,
form window mullions. For ease in cleaning away dust
from wood and stone sculpture, low maintenance
materials such as exposed concrete floors and hard-
board walls were installed. Radiant heat floor is sup-
plemented by solar heat from windows on the entire
length of south wall, which has an overhang designed
to admit winter sun, exclude hot summer sun. The
north louvered overhang reflects light into the studio.

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WISCHMEYER & LORENZ, ARCHITECTS

LINCOLN, MASSACHUSETTS

The out-of-the-ordinary aspect of the program for this
house designed for Mr. and Mrs. William Schwann
was their interest in music, which resulted in a require-
ment for generous, comfortable space to enjoy piano
music and listen to records. The two-story living room
with its focus on the piano indicates the answer to
this desire. Furniture arrangement has been carefully
studied with regard to views, proximity to the fire-
place, and conversational grouping. How successful
this has been is indicated by the two photographs
of the living room on the facing page. Another specific
requirement of the owners — unusual these days —
was the separated, rather formal dining room shown
in the picture at the right, below. A partial second
floor, over the dining room-kitchen end of the house,
contains the master bedroom and a guest room. That
the house is small in periphery and raised to two
stories is the result of a desire to uproot as little as
possible of the landscape. The site is small but heavily
wooded, and the large windows in the living room,
very close to the trees which were carefully preserved,
bring the outdoors intimately into relation with the
interior. The house is frame with fir boarding on the
exterior. Because of the special use of the living room
for music, acoustical plaster is used on the walls. The
heating method is a split system, combining hot water
convectors with peripheral radiant hot air panels. The
large glass area in the living room is additionally
protected by a "curtain" of hot air in the winter time,
and is guarded against too much solar heat in the
summer by the shade of the close trees.

SECOND FLOOR

M.3 R.

SR.

WALTER F. BOGNER AND
CARLETON R. RICHMOND, JR.,
ARCHITECTS

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

An architectural designer often likes to work at home;
the resulting special program requirement is a diffi-
cult one. Relation between the office or studio and
the house should be close, and yet the functions of
the two must not mingle. Mr. Davidson's own house
and studio show a very workable solution. Clients
enter his office before they come to the "entrance
garden" of the house itself. The office and studio are
thus isolated, and yet they form part of the total
building group which encloses the attractive garden
area. The house itself (except for the principal bed-
room with its own private garden) turns its back on
this entrance patio, and instead looks toward the
northeast, where a row of tall eucalyptus trees line
the property. Living room windows open wide to this
view, as the indoor and outdoor pictures below indi-
cate; toward the south the windows are high, letting
light in but giving privacy from this direction (picture
ot left). The Davidsons enjoy "the experience of this
most pleasant exposure of large glass area toward the
northeast, contrary to mostly preferred southern expo-
sure." Each room has its own patio garden, and each
room has two exposures. Natural light is controlled
either by large overhangs or by Venetian blinds, which
at the same time keep out unwanted heat from the
sun. Outside and inside thermostats regulate the gas-
fired radiant heating system.

J. R. DAVIDSON, DESIGNER

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ARMONK, NEW YORK

Both Mr. and Mrs. Edwin D. Lindstrom, for whom
Edgar Tafel designed this house, are musicians, and
this fact plus the peculiar contours of the rocky site
determined the plan arrangement. Bedrooms ore on
a separate, higher level — an advantage derived
from the slope of the site. The living room is angled
both to face the southeast view over Armonk Village
half a mile away and to provide a corner for the
piano (photograph directly below) which is planned
specifically for that purpose. Rather than crowding
the rest of the space in this room, as is so often the
case when a piano must be accommodated, this ar-
rangement gives emphasis to the music needs, and
yet makes both a dining area and a fireplace-centered
conversation alcove possible and enjoyable. The pho-
tograph at the bottom of the facing page shows these
two parts of the room, with the piano alcove at the
right. The kitchen arrangement is most ingenious,
satisfying Mrs. Lindstrom's desire to "hear goings-on
in the living room but not have the kitchen visible
from there." The photo at the right below shows the
splayed wall between kitchen and living room, which
acts as a screen but does not go all the way to the
ceiling. Construction is a brick cavity wall, with the
masonry exposed both inside and outside the house.
Clerestory windows give light to the stair hall, bath,
and heater room. Heating is forced warm air, returned
under the floor in a "crawl space."

EDGAR TAFEL, ARCHITECT

LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Here again a studio-drafting room, in Hugh Stubbins'
own house, is combined with the program for family
living. Although in this instance the studio is con-
tained within the some structure, it is zoned to be
isolated from the family living quarters. Actually the
plan is logically divided into three main zones: there
is the studio on the lower floor; there is the main space
for living, dining and entertaining, with the kitchen as
the center of activity; and there are bedrooms for the
three children with a study-playroom as the center.
Between the living area and the children's wing is the
master bedroom. The entrance is so placed that there
is direct access to all three major zones. The house was
oriented for sun and solar heat, and in relation to
existing shade trees. Placed on a gentle slope, it
follows the contour of the hill to accommodate the
studio-drafting room on the lower level, thus success-
fully isolating it from the house itself. Fieldstone retain-
ing walls and fences link house to the hillside and
make possible four terraces, for living, dining, chil-
dren's play, and studio. Floor-to-ceiling sliding glass
panels open living and dining rooms to terraces. For
future flexibility in the plan, demountable partitions
were incorporated in the children's wing, so that this
area may be adjusted to changing family needs. A
free-standing fieldstone fireplace wall separates din-
ing and living rooms. Built-in furniture and cabinets
are carefully detailed: in the master bedroom ward-
robes have recessed lighting to illuminate room and
inside of closets; a storage wall and pass-through
counter midway separates dining room and kitchen.

HUGH STUBBINS, JR., ARCHITECT

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Above, dining room has gray slate floor
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stone w^alk leads to main entrance from
garage which is separate structure.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

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DOUGLAS HONNOLD, ARCHITECT

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, continued

Planned essentially as a music studio by Douglas
Honnold for the Director of Westwood Music Center,
Mrs. Edward L. Horkness (Edna Larson), this pavilion
also serves as living quarters for Mr. and Mrs. Hork-
ness. Eventually it will be entirely devoted to profes-
sional use. The basic concept necessitated a well-
lighted studio by day without late afternoon glare
and with outdoor space available for additional
seating at concerts. A small two-room studio for the
instruction of violin, voice, etc. was placed in a sepa-
rate building so that it would not interfere with the
main studio and living space. Located on property
with an eastern exposure on a busy street, the large
studio room was oriented to open on a wide angle
to the west for privacy and the enjoyment of music
life. A glass wall of panels, which slide into a pocket
at one side, opens this room to the terrace to accom-
modate the audience at concerts. Control of acoustics
is achieved through the use of reflective surfaces;
absorptive surfaces ore supplied by audience and
furnishings. The ceiling lights are boxed at the beams.
Connected with the main studio, but as separate ap-
pendages, are a kitchen with access to the street, and
a bedroom-bath arrangement at the rear for privacy.
Construction is typical stud wall framing with exposed
beams and 2" sheathing throughout. Noteworthy is
the alternate use of natural stain and bright colors
on the finished wood.

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Vacation Houses

It might almost be said that the contemporary house today, designed for year-round living,
is as informal in its character as the vacation house of a few decades ago. There still remain!
however, many special design problems that result from the program for a vacation house,'
or a house that will be used only part of the year. Many times week-end visitors to the
vacation house will not want to open the entire establishment. In the Walker house on Lake
Tahoe, designed by Joseph Esherick (view from the lake is shown above), it is possible to
open all or a portion of the house if it is used during the winter. Another factor is that a
lesser degree of privacy seems to be satisfactory in this sort of house. Henry Hill has no doors
in any room except the guest's, in his own house in Carmel (pages 58-61) and Harris Armstrong
divides one big room into sleeping cubicles in his own vacation home in the Ozarks (pages
54-55). Closing the house for the winter is another consideration. Note in the Esherick and
Armstrong houses two ways of shuttering living room windows during the closed-up period.

LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA

Although this house for Mr. and Mrs. Brooks Walker
Is mainly a summer house, it was designed also for
winter use during the skiing season. The principal
requirements were for easy mointainance and opera-
tion, privacy and independence for family and guests.
In order to provide maximum privacy and flexibility
architect Joseph Esherick separated the master and
guest bedrooms by the large central living room,
placed the two sons' rooms on the second floor. Most
of the circulation is outside the house, with an exterior
staircase leading directly to the boys' rooms. The
kitchen and maid's room were kept as a unit so that
these could be opened in the winter with a minimum
of effort. If necessory, the balance of the first floor
con also be opened if more space is required. The
living room was kept as an open element with a
spacious deck (below) on the lake side and a terrace
on the sheltered side. A simple system of pulleys
permits simultaneous raising of the balcony floor and
lowering of the upper half of the living room shutters,
thus preventing an accumulation of snow on the bal-
cony and permitting easy opening of the living room
blinds in the winter for short stays. The lower halves
of the living room blinds remain in place all winter
and are removed in the summer to form a simple
car shelter roof. Heat is by gravity air system.

JBALCONYk- SECOND
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0 5 10 15 20
sfcALe" IN FEET

JOSEPH ESHERICK, ARCHITECT

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JEFFERSON COUNTY, MISSOURI

Designed by Harris Armstrong for his own use, and
for informal entertaining, this week-end house is as
rustic as its setting in the foothills of the Ozark
Mountains. Rock from the Missouri creek, upon the
bonk of which it is situated, was used in rough forms
and backed by concrete to form the walls. The canti-
levered upper level faces due south into the limestone
clifF on the opposite bonk, and forms a roof over the
porch on the lower level. As in the case of the design
by Joseph Esherick, shown on the preceding pages,
a virtue has been mode of the necessity to close up
the house when it is not being used. Here the second
floor opens up like an umbrella in warm weather,
with plywood flaps which provide ample shade, raised

from inside by means of ropes and pulleys. When the
house is not in use these close down to protect the
large living room from the elements. For sleeping, the
big main room is divided by curtains into three small
bedrooms, leaving the fireplace corner and the stair-
way to the lower level free. During the day the beds
are converted into sit-up chaise lounges. Heating,
cooking, and refrigeration on the kitchen level and
all lighting are serviced from a 500-gallon liquid gas
tank buried in front of the house. Adhering to the
complete rusticity no plumbing has been provided
inside the house. In the utter simplicity of its plan
this house well illustrates the special results that can
come from the special requirements of vacation living.

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UPPER LEVEL

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LOWER LEVEL

HARRIS ARMSTRONG, ARCHITECT

KELLEYS ISLAND, OHIO

For a vacation retreat which would be easily acces-
sible from his down-town office in Cleveland, Thomas
Hoyt Jones, Jr. selected a site on Kelleys Island. It
can be reached in about twenty minutes flying time
from the airport which is close to his office. Used only
during the non-heating months, the house was de-
signed by Ernst Payer for a bachelor who wanted a
place for relaxation, swimming, and entertaining.
With frequent guests for dinner and over weekends
the generous living-dining room was planned with
their comfort in mind. This room may also be used
for an overnight guest room, but normally guests stay
In other houses on the property. The only bedroom
and Its adjoining bath are separated from the living

area by the kitchen and the entrance hall which has
direct access to the bedroom section. Situated on a
rocky point of the island facing north to the lake, the
living room enjoys this view, and its south-facing win-
dows allow a view across the flat point of the island.
Bedroom windows open to the lake and to the west.
The large fireplace, used for chilly evenings and fall
days, is supplemented by a small heater for bottled
gas located in a closet next to the bath. The simplicity
of the shape of the building was deliberately planned
to contrast with the twisted shapes of trees and
jagged rocky cliffs. Warm tones of color were used
inside to rest eyes from the glare of lake, rocks and
clouds. Exterior and interior walls are redwood.

ERNST PAYER, ARCHITECT

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CARMEL, CALIFORNIA

As contrasted with an occasional or week-end vaca-
tion house, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hill wanted an all-
year retreat house to be enjoyed by their family and
friends at any time. With such a program Henry Hill
designed their own house at Carmel-by-the-Sea to be
easily opened or closed on short notice. The site, on a
relatively narrow street corner two blocks above the
beach — the lower street being Camino Real, the old
Spanish trail — presented a problem. The major view,
to Carmel Point, faced this street side. To take advan-
tage of the view and at the same time maintain pri-
vacy from the street, Mr. Hill, angled his house on the
narrow plot, and used the gentle slope of the site in
a very ingenious way, which is shown on the following
pages. With privacy assured from the outside, the
plan itself could be very open. There are no doors be-
tween rooms, with the exception of the guest room
which can be completely closed off from the rest of

the house and has its own separate entrance. Sliding
glass walls open the indoor living area and the main
bedroom to the pleasant outdoor patio. A further link
for the outdoor-indoor relationship is achieved by
allowing a spreading tree to grow through the glass
wall of the bedroom. A compact kitchen area is tucked
into one corner of the large main room, easily acces-
sible to the dining area and the patio. Separated from
the living room only by a partial partition, with cab-
inets and work space below, it allows the family to
visit with their guests while preparing meals, and also
has the added merit of keeping a sense of space.
Native Carmel stone was used for exterior walls, in
combination with a simple post and beam structural
system. Tongue and groove boards, 2x6 inches, are
used for roofing with their exposed undersides stained
with gilt. The furnace feeds worm air into a space
above the kitchen from which it is distributed.

HENRY HILL, DESIGNER

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CARMEL, CALIFORNIA, continued

The way in which "view sight lines" from the living
room hove been maintained while this part of the
house is shielded from the street is shown by the sec-
tion and the photograph below. Note the obscure
glass at the lower level of the living room window
wall. A sunken garden inside, below the floor level
of the living room, matched by a plant bed outside
the gloss wall, contributes further to the privacy from
the street. The manner in which this view is obtained
and enjoyed while the room turns principally to its
southern terrace, is shown by the photograph (left).

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Subdivision Houses

It is a fact which the architectural profession admits sadly ihat most of the houses built
speculatively for sale have had little or no advantage of professional design talent. Builders
have felt that their safest approach was to put on the market a pre-tested, pre-occepted sort
of house, and for this, they believed, they could use stock plans. As a result design progress
has been slow in this numerically important field — but in recent years there has been
progress. Some builders have produced houses which used contemporary design principles—
and sold them rapidly— and some architects have worried about the problem. A most potent
influence in bringing together architects and builders for mutual study of ways to improve sub-
division houses has been the educational-research activity of the Housing Research Foundation
of Southwest Research Institute. Four of the houses that follow have been a part of this
program, which will assist and promote "quality" subdivision houses.

The design problem in this house type, as architect Charles Goodman says in describing
his Hollin Hills development, shown on this and the next three pages, is to provide a plan
which will meet "general average living requirements." The only way provision can be made
for special and unusual needs is to design, as Alexander Knowlton did (page 66), a many-
purpose additional room, which each family may use as it wants. The builder-house plan
must be economical in the use of space and in the use of materials, but the result need not
be shoddy. A design such as A. Quincy Jones provides (pages 68-70), for anyone to build on
his own lot with necessary variations, proves that the "typical" program can result in good
architecture. Landscaping and siting the development house is a problem seldom solved well.
The coordinated land design for Hollin Hills, shown on the facing page, indicates what can be
accomplished by a thoughtful approach to this problem. The site planning was especially
commended when the project was chosen for an annual award by Southwest Research Institute.

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ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

Defining very well the general problem that an archi-
tect faces when designing subdivision houses, Charles
Goodman describes the program for Hollin Hills, Inc.,
as "type house for a community development designed
to meet the general average living requirements of
the middle income group." Better than most builders'
projects, this development mokes full use of its site—
a wooded, hilly area in which the architect and Robert
C. Davenport, the builder, saw possibilities which
others had overlooked. Also better than most such
enterprises, the group of houses is tied into a com-
munity, by the retention of park areas within the de-
velopment for community use, and by an integrated
and unified landscaping program which allows each
home-owner to extend his living space to the lot lines
of his property, without conflicting with unrelated
plans to use outdoor space which his neighbors may
have. There are three house plans used in the sub-
division; the one illustrated here is the smallest type.
Every possible device has been utilized to get max-
imum living space into a relatively small rectangular
plan, to make it seem more spacious than the actual
dimensions would indicate, and to give a pleasing,
non-boxy appearance to the exterior. One means of
accomplishing this has been the breaking of the en-
trance porch into a cube of the house (photograph
below), which gives a pleasing openness to that

corner, and an interesting T-form to the living-dining
room. For the sake of economy and to gain usable
space, Goodman has done two things that are not
conventional in builders' houses: corridors and hall-
ways ore reduced to a minimum (passage from the
front door to the bedrooms is between the living and
dining parts of the large room, and the "corridor"
must be defined by furniture arrangement, as the
lower picture on the opposite page indicates); storage
space is provided only in the ample closets, and bulk
storage must be token care of in outdoor sheds, the
purchase of which is optional. Since the placing of
these storage buildings is important, and there is a
desire to correlate the landscaping, each buyer is also
provided with a landscaping plan for his property,
designed by landscape architect Lou Bernard Voigt,
complete with a planting list. How thorough these are,
and how adjoining plots ore related to one another
is indicated by the three site plans on page 62. Care-
ful attention has been given the construction of the
houses, OS well. The structural system is a wood module
based on the dimensions of standard steel casement
sash, with masonry buttress walls at the ends. Full
advantage has been token of the fact that standardi-
zation is possible with a group of similar houses: doors,
shelving, closet fronts, and even major structural items
such as roof trusses are standard throughout.

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bed room 5

CHARLES M. GOODMAN
ASSOCIATES,
ARCHITECTS

ORLANDO, FLORIDA

The Samuel Roen house was designed for the specific
use of Mr. and Mrs. Roen (they are radio announcers
and conduct a daily broadcast from home); at the
same time it was a prototype for a group of houses
to be built as a development. The lot is only 75 x 100
feet, and the plan requirements were rather extensive.
The architect's solution was to enter in the middle of
an L-shaped plan, eliminating much corridor space,
as Charles Goodman did in the Hollin Hills plan, but
providing direct access from the entry to the bedroom
wing. The only cross circulation that might occur is
from kitchen to front door. The house has three bed-
rooms, with the Roens using one as a soundproofed
"den" from which they broadcast. There was a desire
to provide a second living room, which in subsequent
houses might have many flexible uses (guests, hobby
workroom, children's entertainment, etc.) and which,
in the Roen's case, is a business conference room. The
structural system is extremely simple — posts and
beams, with the posts serving as window frames. Roof
is mill-floor construction with the sheathing 2x6 inch
tongue and grooved boards, providing in themselves
a finished ceiling, a certain amount of insulation, and
the structural surface to receive the roofing material.
Fencing and planting fairly close to the house pro-
vided privacy, and at the same time shield the large
glass areas from the low, hot Florida sun. Heating is a
perimeter duct system, with warm air blowing up in
front of the windows and glass areas and the returns
In the center of the house.

Scale in feet

0' 5' 10' 15- 20-

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Strictly speaking, this is not a subdivision house, be-
cause it was designed to be built on individual lots,
already owned by the home buyer. At the time this
is written, eighteen have been built in San Diego, and
five in Los Angeles, by Mr. A. C. Huistendahl — the
contractor for the enterprise, who owns this particular
house pictured. Without the problem of interrelation-
ship of houses in a development, the program which
was set for the architect was the some one that any
builder's house project poses — a plan that will suit
the average family's requirements, on an average lot.
This solution is outstanding (the house won the 1950
Honor Award for residences given by the American
Institute of Architects) by reason of the fact that in a
small plan each room has its own full garden court
and yet has privacy. Variations in the plan must, of
course, be made for size and shape of the lot, views,
orientation, and adjacent buildings. In this case the
property is on a corner, and a series of fences have
been used as part of the landscaping scheme, to shield
the living room garden and the dining room terrace
from the street. The two bedroom gardens on the
other side of the house can be shielded from neigh-
i

bors' views by planting. One enters the house by a
trellised walk from the garage (pictures below and
across page) into a centrally located hall which con-
nects very simply with living room, bedrooms and
kitchen. Each of the four principal rooms occupies a
corner of the rectangular plan, and there is thus al-
most no space wasted for circulation. The structure
is a simple series of four large rigid-frame ribs run-
ning the long way of the house, covered by 2 x 6
tongue and grooved fir boards left exposed and
stained. This frame is shown clearly in the living room
photograph on the bottom of the opposite page.
Since no conventional studding is required along the
walls with this system, it is possible to open each room
up widely to its garden or terrace, and a bright feel-
ing of spaciousness results even in such a small plan.
A number of options have been arranged for the
buyer, most important of which is the fireplace, which
con be included or not; others are the fences, roof
insulation, choice of wall material (plywood or red-
wood) and, of course, utility connections, which will
vary with the site. Heating is by warm air, and roof
is designed so all rooms have ceiling ventilation.

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A. QUINCY JONES, JR., ARCHITECT

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, continued

The picture at the right shows how kitchen equipment
has been utilized to act as a screen between the
kitchen and the dining space. The structural bents,
supported by built-up posts at intermediate points,
can be seen running straight through the length of
the house, visually pleasant and economical.
Looking back from the dining area to the kitchen
(above) one sees how easy service is either within the
house or to the dining terrace outside. The smaller of
the two bedrooms (of right) gains a sense of space by
opening to its own private garden.

HOUSTON, TEXAS

Sponsored by the Housing Research Foundation of the
Southwest Research Institute as part of its program to
produce better builders' development houses, this
house built and sold by the Frank Sharp Company
was designed to a program which called for no more
than 1000 square feet of space. Other requirements
were three bedrooms, a combined living and dining
room, and — not usual in a small subdivision house-
flexible entertainment areas. Although it Is port of a
comporatively low-cost real estate development, this
lot is a generous one and, as the pictures indicate,
well planted with old trees. Since the street front is
the northerly aspect of the lot, it was reasonable to
turn the house to the back. In addition to the prin-
cipal entronce into the living-dining room, shown in
the overall photograph below, there is another door
from the carport to the kitchen. Both of these means
of access are arranged so that they do not interfere
with the openness and the privacy of the other side
of the house. The street front has only high windows
in the dining space ond kitchen penetrating the Mexi-
can brick and silver-grey shingled walls.

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HOUSTON, TEXAS, continued

The desire to provide flexibility of space for entertain-
ing was solved by architects MacKie and Kamrath
by making it possible to throve one of the three bed-
rooms into the living-dining area through the use of
curtains and folding leather doors. In the same way
the dining space con be separated, and the resulting
possible combinations of use of these three rooms
answer almost any requirement for openness or pri-
vacy. As the plan indicates, there is a drying yard
adjacent to the carport which con be used as a play
yard for small children. For that purpose the door to
the kitchen provides easy access to the bathroom.
Storage facilities in the house ore generous, and a
number of built-in furniture items, such as the dresser
arrangement in the master bedroom (photo at top of
opposite page) add to the usability of space. Heating
is by means of a forced-air gas furnace hung in the
attic space over the bedroom corridor, sending warm
air to all parts of the house by means of short duct
runs. A ventilating fan, also in the attic, draws air
from the various rooms and exhausts it to the outdoors.

RECREATION
BED ROOM

BEO ROOM

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BED ROOM

FOIOING DOOR

CAR PORT

9 10 IS

MAC KIE & KAMRATH, ARCHITECTS

PLAY ANO DRYING
YARD

lOING GATE

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Another house sponsored by Southwest Research In-
stitute's Housing Research Foundation is located in a
development built by Albert Belch, progressive Seattle
home builder. This project has the somewhat typical
problem of a restricted site with no particularly inter-
esting view. A great deal of apparent space has been
found in a rectangle 47 x 26 feet, by ingenious plan
arrangement. The living-dining room is separated from
the kitchen only by a very open storage wall (photo-
graph at the right, this page) and full use has been
mode of a split-level plan by providing a supervisory
opening between the upper part of the kitchen and
the lower part of the children's playroom, which can
be seen from the playroom side in the lower picture
on this page. In the bedroom wing the two smaller

rooms can be thrown together by pushing back a
folding wall, and their relationship, as children's
rooms, to the adjacent playroom is excellent. In the
lower-level plan under the bedroom wing, not shown
here, ore located the laundry and heater room, and
a large "shop" which could be used for any sort of
hobby. The carport is also on this level (lower picture,
opposite page). As the photographs show, the house
turns a quite unopen wall not only to the street, but to
the rear of the lot, except for the playroom windows.
The large glass openings are at the two ends — the
bedrooms facing north and the living-dining room
turning to the south and its own pleasant terrace. Con-
struction is wood frame; heating is by copper-tube hot
water panels in the ceiling.

CHIARELLI & KIRK, ARCHITECTS

DALLAS, TEXAS

Built for the American Home Realty Company, in the
Wynnewood subdivision in Dallas, the house shown
here is planned with two bedrooms to begin with and
so schemed that a third can be added at any time in
the future. As in the case of other builders' houses that
have been described, the desire to conserve space
as much as possible has led to a circulation system
which reduces corridors to a minimum. Here the en-
trance is in on especially strategic position, leading
directly ahead into the living room, and opening on
one side to the kitchen and on the other to the short
bedroom hall. The architects strove to satisfy a variety
of possible family needs in the one plan. There is
space in the kitchen, for instance, to eat not only
breakfasts but full meals in rather generous comfort.
Texas, the designers point out, has a climate with ex-
tremes of hot and cold, and two sorts of house will
satisfy the temperature differentials — a thick-walled,
small-windowed one, like the old adobe structures, or
an open house through which the breezes can cir-
culate in summer but which must be carefully and
adequately heated for the severe cold spells. DeWitt
& Swank chose the latter course, providing adequate
cross-ventilation, catching all of the breezes that could
be used, and heating during the winter with a rapidly
responding forced warm air system. While the rear
of the house (the southern exposure) can be developed
OS a private lawn or garden (top picture, at right),
the street side, with the projecting carport, is planned
to adapt itself to any landscaping budget, depending
on how much planting the owner wants to indulge in
for the sake of appearance, rather than use, on this
more public side of the house (lower picture, at right).
Structure is a conventional frame wall supporting pre-
fabricated roof trusses that span the width of the
house. Partitions are non-bearing, and use has been
made of built-in storage units in lieu of walls.

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DEWITT & SWANK, ARCHITECTS

THE SITE

One measure of a successful house is how thoroughly and intimately it relates to its site and
to its natural setting. If house and land appear to be a unity— to belong one to the other-
it is not mere chance; it is because the architect has sensitively fused the two by adapting
the house to the special character of the site. This is true regardless of the nature of the land
—whether it be on a hillside, or steeply sloping ground, has gentle contours, or is completely
flat; whether it be naturally wooded, on a rocky ledge, with a rugged terrain, or a typical
city or suburban lot. The sensitive architect will also study and design to the related factors
of views or lack of view, the prevailing breeze or offending winds, the points of the compass
for ideal orientation and, with privacy in mind, the nearness of or lack of neighbors. He will
also consider spaces for outdoor living, as well as sun and shade in these areas. Finally, there is
the use of existing trees and the interpenetration of indoors and outdoors both visually and
physically (discussed more fully on page 139). This amalgamation of architecture and the
surrounding environment has been skillfully developed in the design of contemporary houses.

The configuration of the land has p great deal to do with the final appearance of the house
and with the space organization of the plan. An outstanding example of a happy and con-
genial alliance between the natural setting and the resultant house is the Tremaine house
designed by Richard Neutro, which opens this section of the book. It demonstrates a completely
sympathetic adaptation to the wooded rolling properly, with stone masonry walls harmoniz-
ing with outcropping boulders; the interior, reaching out info the landscape by a series of
terraces and decks, is further extended by connecting steps conforming to the gentle contour
of the land. The outdoors with its nearby trees and a distant view of mountains infiltrates
the indoors through full-height sliding doors of glass and wide window expanses. Other
instances of a complete integration with the external environment is the house in Chappaqua
by Architects Associated, on pages 100-103, and the one in Kentfield, California designed
by Henry Hill, on pages 92-95.

Hillside sites present a very special type of problem to architects and because each such
problem is an individual one, there are an infinite number of solutions. Steeply sloping sites,
for instance, often result in a series of levels tying or fitting the house to the hillside, as in
the house by Chiarelli & Kirk (pages 90-91) which has two levels with the main living area
on top to gain a view of the lake beyond, and in the one by Francis Joseph McCarthy (pages
98-99) with a split-level scheme adjusted to the slope of the site and with openings to the
north for the view and to the south for sun. Three levels, again with the living area at the
top, were stepped down a rocky ledge to accommodate the house in Sausalito by Mario Corbett
(pages 10-12); the additional reason for nestling this house into the ledge, which the site
made possible, was to give protection from gales and fogs. Here the rugged setting of out-
cropping rocks and wild growth was deliberately kept unspoiled. Outdoor living spaces are
much more difficult to incorporate in hilly terrain than on more level ground. This factor,
however, does not daunt the imaginative architect. In the house illustrated on pages 88-89,
architect John Funk carved a rear outdoor living terrace out of the hillside. Carl Maston in
his own house (illustrated on pages 123-125) shaped three terraces— one for sun, another for
shade, and a third for a secluded area— out of his hilly site with the help of a bulldozer.

And, as pointed out in the house designed by Gordon Drake, on pages 189-191, the architect
made a virtue of a necessity by anchoring the house on one side to the hill— lifting the main
living area to tree-top height for view and sunlight and extending it with o balcony.

Another type of site problem— that of a narrow plateau-like strip of land backed against a
bluff— was ingeniously solved by Fred Langhorst in the house shown on pages 14-15.
Here the shape of the house and the interior plan were a natural consequence of the limita-
tions of the site, with all rooms opening to the exposed side and each one having its corres-
ponding outdoor space. To anchor it to the hilly bluff in the rear, the garage roof was
extended to form a protection for the entrance walk, with the roof members tying it into the
hill and with raised plant beds to prevent erosion of the bluff.

In contrast to the steep hillside is the more gently sloping property where it is possible to take
advantage of the natural contour. In the Minneapolis house by Thorshov & Cerny, on pages
106-108, one sees how the roll of the property has been used advantageously to lead one easily
into three separate entrances. With slightly more of a slope to work with architect Edward
Stone utilized it for a plan solution with various levels which form a natural separation of
the main living space in the center from the master wing on one side and the guest areas
and service quarters on the other (pages 31-35). He also used the land contour to form a
series of terraces, facing the major view, and set-back levels which contribute to the privacy.

On a small plot, especially on a typical suburban or city lot, the architect has an even greater
challenge to moke every square foot of the restricted area pay its way in living space. The
problem of providing actual or illusory space becomes an acute one, demanding greater
ingenuity than in planning a larger site which gives one more scope. Expansion of the living
space into the outdoors is particularly desirable but the provision of privacy must be a
consideration in conjunction with the expansion. Screened or walled patios or courtyards are
perhaps the most successful means of achieving this on a limited piece of ground. A good
example is the Seattle house by Paul Thiry (see pages 130-131) which uses the device of an
almost enclosed patio garden around which the house bends on three sides, with a trellised
wall on the fourth side, to make maximum use of the sixty-foot-wide city lot. Another is the
Henry Hill house in Carmel (pages 58-61) which achieves privacy from the street by placing
the house at an angle on the small corner site, and by screening the garden patio in front
with trellis and on the side with a wall. On still another typical suburban lot, where each
room of the house has its corresponding outdoor space, Gordon Drake's solution (pages
144-145) was a series of fenced courts and gardens.

Where more than one house is involved, on property shared jointly by neighbors (as in the
two houses on one property designed by Raymond and Rodo, pages 104-105) or in the case
of subdivision developments, integrated use of the shared land with provision for individual
privacy is desirable and can be achieved if there is foresight and cooperative planning.
This is demonstrated in the Roymond-Rado houses referred to above where the architects,
together with the landscape architects, carefully planned full utilization of the site's natural
assets of evergreen trees (with informal planting of bulbs) and screening of parking and
circulation areas. It is admirably illustrated on a much larger scale in the Hollin Hills develop-
ment designed by Charles Goodman and illustrated on pages 62-65. In the latter cose the
wooded, hilly land was carefully site planned to retain the natural landscape, with park
areas interlaced between individual plots.

In selecting a site and wedding to it the house which is to become a part of it, it is essential
to take inventory of its diverse conditions, of its natural assets, and possible limitations. Only
in this way can the house plan itself become a fully developed, organic expression taking full
advantage of all its design opportunities.

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RICHARD J. NEUTRA, ARCHITECT

MONTECITO, CALIFORNIA

Mr. and Mrs. Warren Tremaine are the fortunate
owners of one of the most successful houses yet de-
signed by Richard Neutra. The requirement of the
Tremaine family — husband and wife and two young
daughters — was a contemporary, fireproof house
(forest fires are a threat in the area) which would not
shock the rather conservative community. Neutra
accomplished this not by compromise, but by a use of
stone walls, slender concrete construction and light
projecting roofs, with the result that the house gains
its appeal and its livobility through a completely
sympathetic adaptation to the wooded rolling site.
The view is to the north toward mountains, and the
plan is so devised that one enters on the south side.
The picture on the facing page shows this entrance
approach, with the entry itself invitingly opening up
between the outside high stone wall of the guest room
and the lower wall which extends out eastward to
form and protect a dining terrace. The roof of the
south wing of the house, with its simple criss-cross of
beams and its thin slab, projects out over and beyond
this entrance in a way that seems to lead one into
the house. It is on the northwest side that one appre-
ciates most fully the unity of the house with its site.
Here the "social quarters" — the living port of the
residence — open to one another and extend out in
a series of terraces, steps and decks that, in the words
of Siegfried Giedion, the architectural historian,
"form a bridge into the landscape." (Pictures above
and at left; interiors are on the next two pages.)

MONTECITO, CALIFORNIA, continued

The central and important part of the plan of the
Tremaine house is the area in which social quarters
of various sorts merge with one another and the site.
Living and dining areas, a quiet book room, the
play space for the children, and their adjacent ter-
races flow together not by accident and not In any
contrived manner, but by reason of the lightness and
airiness of the construction. The basic frame of the
house is a skeleton of light reinforced concrete posts,
which support girders spanning such distances that
continuous glass walls of large dimensions are pos-
sible. The roof framing has been so arranged that
above the girder continuous openings admit ventila-
tion directly under the ceiling, in a manner which
can be seen in the upper photograph on the opposite
page. Lighting has been integrated with the design
by the use of indirect cold-cathode tubes above the
dropped ceilings, such as the one shown in the lower
photograph opposite. These two pictures show well
the closeness with the outdoors, on the one hand,
and the relationship of indoor spaces, on the other.
In the lower picture one sees the living room itself,
with the book space on the right, portially screened;
the dining space is on the left; between these is the
entrance gallery. The photograph above looks toward
the north side of the living room, and indicates how
the interior reaches out toward the landscape beyond,
making the final transition by means of a row of
movable redwood "screens" which can be pivoted so
that they adapt themseh'es to changing needs.

MONTECITO, CALIFORNIA, continued

Although there is, of course, more of a sense of
privacy in the bedroom wing of the Tremaine house,
Neutro has also succeeded in gaining a feeling of
unity with the outdoors even in these rooms. The
central picture on this page shows the exterior of this
wing, with the roof invitingly projected out on conti-
levered girders. The upper photograph is of the corner
of the master bedroom, which looks southwest toward
another part of the site. Below is the sitting room in
this suite which the parents occupy, looking north
toward the view which dominates the property and
makes this orientation an inevitable one. On its oppo-
site side this room opens into the children's play
space, and in a westerly direction it overlooks the
landscaped pool at a lower level.

LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS

With a property of eighty acres Mr. and Mrs. Abel E.
Fogen wanted for themselves and their three sons a
pleasant place to live on a farm, with minimum up-
keep, which would allow for out-of-door activities and
relaxation in the country. The land is comparatively
flat with a few small rises and is partly wooded. The
house is situated in one of several groves of trees,
and completely screened from the road which is about
1500 feet away. It is oriented to the south for winter
sunshine and toward the major view which is in that
direction. All major rooms face away from the en-
trance side (shown in the photograph at left) giving
privacy to the living areas. The plan is a development
of the solar house which architect George Fred Keck
reports is extremely popular with the owners who
understand the principles of orientation and the de-
velopment of regional types of houses. A point was
made of the angular placement of large gloss areas
(see photograph below) not only for view, but "also
for the reflective values of the glass, which odd a
note to the spatial feeling in the house, and rid it
of the monotony of the rectangular unit." Construc-
tion is of wood and stone in a traditional manner.
The flat roof was designed to carry water for cooling
the house in the heat of summer months.

GEORGE FRED KECK, ARCHITECT

LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS, continued

Wide-spreading wings fan out from the centrally
located living-dining room to afford a wider view
from the living area: the study and bedroom wing to
the northwest; and the service wing — with a hobby
room at the far end — to the northeast. The central
core, which contains the boiler room, has fireplaces
opening to the living room and the study. Above and
surrounding the angular wall of the fireplace in the
living room (shown in photographs at right and be-
low) is a clerestory which brings additional daylight
to this focal port of the room. The master bedroom
enjoys a wide expanse of view with its three-angled
window wall oriented to the east, south and west (see
photograph on opposite page). The family entertains
a great deal, and for the occasional overnight guest
the study, with its adjacent bath, serves as an addi-
tional bedroom. There is also a cottage on the prop-
erty for summer guests. Radiant heating is provided
through copper coils in the masonry floor which is
directly on the ground. Mr. Keck reports that heat
loss to the ground is negligible, and that the floors
ore cool in summer because they are in contact with
the cool ground. A direct effort was mode in con-
struction to shelter the house from summer heat, equal-
izing as much as possible variations in temperature.
Most lighting is indirect fluorescent cove lighting.

BELVEDERE, CALIFORNIA

That there is more than one way to best exploit a
hillside site is ably demonstrated in this house de-
signed by John Funk for Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Kirby.
Situated in Marin County, it is oriented toward the
east with a view of San Francisco Bay. To provide
outdoor living space, which is a prime requisite in
this mild climate, the architect carved a rear terrace
out of the hillside on the west. This "outdoor room"
odds a sense of spaciousness to the small compact
house of only 726 square feet. By the use of an all-
glass wall and gloss doors opening to the terrace,
it actually becomes on extension of the living room.
Since the eastern exposure of this room is raised well
above the rood because of the hillside slope, it was
possible to moke this opposite wall of gloss — for a
wide view to the Bay — without loss of privacy inside.
This wall, opening to a contilevered balcony, also
increases the apparent size of the main room. Con-
struction is wood frame, with redwood finish both
on the exterior and interior walls; ceilings are of
pine. Heating is by a warm-air gravity system located
in the center of the house to serve the three rooms.
Wide roof overhangs give protection against weather.

JOHN FUNK, ARCHITECT

BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON

To make the best possible use of a narrow (sixty-five
feet wide) steeply sloping site, architects Chlarelll an6
Kirk built this small house on two levels and placed
the living area on the top floor for full enjoyment of
the dramatic view of Lake Washington. The entrance
is at this upper level, and gives direct access to the
lower bedroom floor by a stairway which is screened
from the living room by a partition containing book-
shelves and storage cabinet (as shown In the two
photographs at right). The two bedrooms and the
multi-use room between each open to the garden and
a terrace, which because of Its elevation (the site has
a twenty-five foot slope) also has a full view of the
lake below. Large glass areas on the western side
are shielded from glare of sun and frequent rains by
wide roof overhangs. Louvers under the fixed glass
panels provide ventilation. To meet Mr. and Mrs.
Donald McLean's requirement for a large living space
for entertaining, the architects planned the top floor
as virtually one big room with a partial partition
between it and the compact kitchen. The slope of the
shed roof, carried through on the Inside, increases
the sense of spaciousness and helps open up the view
to the west. Walls of vertical cedar siding and large
pressed-wood floor tiles give a feeling of warmth to
the Interior. Exterior walls are of red cedar. Heating
is by means of electric panels in the ceiling of up-
stairs and In the floor slab downstairs.

LOWtH LtVtL

CHIARELLI & KIRK, ARCHITECTS

KENTFIELD, CALIFORNIA

The site of the John Cosmos house is what the de-
signer, Henry Hill, describes as an "incredibly beau-
tiful" knoll which falls ofF steeply to south, east and
west. The house was deliberately not placed on the
crest of the knoll, but was situated as far over on the
southeast slope as possible. The desire of the owners,
the designer, and landscape architects Eckbo, Royston
and Williams, was to give expression to the site, which
mokes you "want to continue to see over more and
beyond." The plan does this by leading one under
the second floor overhang {picture below) into a foyer
off which rises a stair to the second floor (picture on
opposite page), through a glazed gallery which leads
to the living room. Beyond is a partially paved, par-
tially board-decked terrace (picture at right) which
looks up to the top of Mt. Tolmolpais and down to
the valley floor 400 feet below. In this progression
into the house, the floor steps down but the ceiling
continues at the same level to give a sense of con-
tinuity. When the living room is reached, ahead lies
the panoramic view, emphasized by the wide open-
ing at the for end of the room, framed by the stone
of the flreplace on one side and a stone panel at the
corner of the room on the other side.

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KENTFIELD, CALIFORNIA, continued

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The location of the second floor in relation to the
total house is illustratecJ by the picture at the left
below. The dining room-living room wing (extending
forward at the right in the picture) and the wing
which houses the study (stretching out to the left) are
one-storied. The second-floor rooms are over the
service wing and the entrance gallery, so that one
stair comes up for the family from the foyer and a
service stair rises from the corridor in the maids'
quarters. The deck which is shown in the photograph
wraps around two sides of the master bedroom, and
extends almost up to the stair enclosure, covering a
terrace below it on the first floor, outside the entrance
gallery. The picture directly below shows the open-
ness of the stair, the terrace beyond it, and, through
the glass wall, the edge of the second floor deck
above. At the right, above, is a view of the master
bedroom with its fully glazed south wall. Other pic-
tures on this page ore of the dining room, with its
wall curving as the house plan fits itself to the knoll;
and, at the bottom, the view end of the living room
with the fireplace hood of crimped copper against
rough stone masonry. Various woods hove been used
on the non-masonry walls — redwood, Philippine ma-
hogany, Korina, and birch.

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HIGHLAND PARK, ILLINOIS

With hills and blufFs at a premium in a region of the
country which is chiefly flat prairie land, the owners
of this house wanted to take full advantage of a view
overlooking the Skokie valley even though it was
toward the west. Architect Morgan Yost placed the
house on the highest point of their site, and faced
the living-dining room so that Mr. and Mrs. Norman
Deno could fully enjoy the view of the valley and of
the orchard in the foreground. An open porch and
terrace are also on this side of the house. The porch
roof and a wide main roof extension protect the
window walls from too much glare and heat. The
bedrooms in this T-shaped plan have a more intimate
view to the south into a pleasantly wooded glen.
Although the house was designed for a couple with
one grown son living at home, they wanted a third
bedroom for the visits of the married son and his
family. Separate forced warm-air heating plants serve
the cross and the stem of the T-plan as solar condi-
tions are different in the two areas. All windows are
fixed, with ventilation by louvers. Construction is solid
brick masonry on a concrete slab.

L. MORGAN YOST, ARCHITECT

BELVEDERE, CALIFORNIA

Very steep sites are usually either passed over by the
home builder as offering too difficult a problem, or
used in an awkward and inappropriate manner. In
designing this house for Mr. and Mrs. Nathan D.
Rowley, the architect, Francis Joseph McCarthy, was
faced not only with this steep-site problem but with
the fact that the view, down the slope, is to the north
while the owners wanted as much south sun as pos-
sible during winter months. The slope of the site is
utilized by developing a split-level scheme for the
bedrooms, and extending a balcony the length of the
living room and dining room, overhanging the view.
A series of stone walls and carefully organized plant-
ing on the southwest side of the house, where there
is a fifteen-foot drop from street to first floor, made
it possible not only to wind a path down the slope,
but also to And space for a small garden on this side.
The desire for glass on both sides of the living-dining
area, for solar radiation and for view, was satisfied
by making this part of the house rather shallow,
opening both sides, and depending on curtains to
screen sunshine when it is not wanted. The photo-
graph at the bottom of the opposite page pictures
this very open space. It shows also the "island" fire-
ploce, with only the circular flues extending above
the top of what is truly a piece of furniture, oak-
encased with cabinets on the dining-room side to act
OS a buffet. By this device a small dining space is
made to seem more spacious.

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FRANCIS JOSEPH McCARTHY, ARCHITECT

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CHAPPAQUA, NEW YORK

OUSE

ARCHITECTS

ARCHITECTS ASSOCIATED,

KATZ

WAISMAN

BLUMENKRANZ

STEIN

WEBER

The house that a group of orchifecfs calling them-
selves Architects Associated designed for Mr. and
Mrs. Samuel Dretzin was carefully planned to adapt
itself to its five-acre woodland site thrusting out from
a rocky ledge toword a private lake; furthermore,
the desire was to make the house fit quickly into its
surroundings, and within the year after it had been
built that aim had been accomplished. Two landscape
experts — Frederick V. Guinsburg, for rock gardens,
and John Dunn, for landscape planting, created a
planted surrounding for the house (making full use
of existing trees and rock ledges) which weds it com-
pletely to the site. In planning the house, the archi-
tects made this possible by providing a series of ter-
races and steps and stairs which lead visually and
physically from the various rooms of the house to
the outdoors. The entrance, on the north, is well con-
cealed from the road by a rock ledge with its own
natural, colorful planting. The entrance hall leads
directly into the living area, and one immediately
sees, through glass walls, the rock gardens, the oak
and beech groves, and the lake beyond. The guest
room also opens from the entrance hall, as does the
master bedroom, with its own rock garden. Across the
page is a view of the south, lake side of the house,
with the dining-living spaces projecting forward. Be-
low, is the living room end of this large open space.

CHAPPAQUA, NEW YORK, continued

The plan on this page and the photograph at the
right, above, indicate how the living-dining room
extends itself to the west by means of a screened
porch. Outside the living room is a terrace at the
upper level, and from the porch a wooden suspension
bridge leads down to the lake. The architects' handling
of the living-dining-kitchen space is ingenious. Struc-
turally it is one large area: the subdivisions are ac-
complished by the free-standing fireplace between
dining and living rooms, and a storage wall opening
on one side to living and dining rooms and, on the
other side, to the kitchen and closet-lined corridor. In
the same way, in the master bedroom suite, cabinets
which are not structural members form the division
between sleeping and dressing spaces. The result of
coordination of interior requirements and the basic
architectural design in this manner is that an unusual
degree of harmony exists between the house, its
furnishings and the site. Lighting has also been care-
fully considered in the Dretzin house. Fluorescent
lights set on the storage wall provide diffused indirect
lighting, and spotlights for reading and card-playing,
as well as pinpoint concealed lights directed on the
fine paintings owned by the Dretzins, provide supple-
trientary illumination in the living room. Outdoor
lighting on the surrounding gardens and natural land-
scape brings site and house into relationship at night.

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GREAT NECK, LONG ISLAND

The planning of a house in relation fo its site, and the
planting of that site, is often an individual problem,
with relationship to neighbors and the community
either overlooked or a thing of chance. (The overall
planned landscaping of Charles Goodman's Hollin
Hills project on pages 62-65 is an example of the
exception to this rule). Here, for the Sidney Rosens
(house on the right, or east, in the plan below) and
the Dan Krakauers (left, west house) Antonin Raymond
and his partner, L. L. Rado, had the opportunity of
coordinating the site planning — including the loca-
tion of the houses on the land — for two close neigh-
bors who built at the same time. Although much of
the planting still has to grow to be effective (as the
photograph on the facing page indicates) landscape
architect James Rose, who collaborated, has care-
fully planned full utilization of the site and, with the
architects, the greatest degree of indoor-outdoor cir-
culation. The site plan below shows, for instance,
the screening of the parking areas of the two houses,
the definition of the terraces with planting, the border-
ing of lawns and smooth green areas in free and
interesting shapes, the way "naturalized" evergreen
planting (with spring bulbs sown underneath the trees)
has been allowed to intrude in a casual manner at
several edges of the site. The two houses are similar
in overall plan, but quite different in some detailed
respects. The Rosen house, with its long service wing
terminating in the garage, is approached by a pro-
tected walk from the driveway entrance (upper pho-
tograph at the left). Entry to the house is at a point
between the living-dining space (middle photo at left;
the dining table is behind the free-standing fireplace)
and the bedroom wing. Within the bedroom area the
arrangement of the two children's rooms is particularly
noteworthy; they can be separated or thrown together
and opened into the corridor as one large ploy room
by the use of sliding partitions.

Xis.

ANTONIN RAYMOND & L. L. RADO, ARCHITECTS

105

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

THORSHOV & CERNY, ARCHITECTS

It is one thing to adopt a house to its site in on
esthetic sense; it is another to take advantage of
terrain (or overcome the limitations of a difficult prop-
erty) to malce special and unusual requirements of the
program function efficiently. The house designed for
Dr. and Mrs. Allan Challman by architects Thorshov &
Cerny accomplishes both these ends. The Chollmans
live alone except v/hen guests or their children or
grandchildren arrive for visits; Dr. Challman is a psy-
chiatrist who conducts some of his practice at home;
Mrs. Challman has an active interest in gardening.
Plan requirements were fixed by several factors: the
site is in a section of undeveloped woods, adjacent
to one of the lakes that make Minneapolis such an
attractive city; the property is rolling ground, with the
uninterrupted lake view to the west (to the right on
the plot plan above); neighbors are few and distant.
The general plan solution is a house which opens to
the south for sun and enjoyment of gardens, and

yet takes full advantage of the lake view to the west
by turning one side of oil major rooms in this direc-
tion, and appending a screened porch at the westerly
end of the house. Entrances to the house have been
adroitly arranged to fit the contour of the property.
Since the driveway comes in on a level sweep, it was
reasonable to keep service entry and the main en-
trance to the house near each other; yet notice, in
the photograph obove, how a slight rise in the site
has been banked to moke on attractive stone-stepped
walk to the principal entrance, raising it above and
away from the lower door to the laundry and the
service center of the house. The third entry on this
side of the house is at the east end, to what is now
the Doctor's office and will ultimately be a guest suite.
This is opprooched by a walk which rises up from the
driveway (extreme left of the picture above) and
swings around away from the house to approach it
from the east with complete privacy.

106

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107

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, continued

Careful attention has been given to detailing of
storage units in the kitchen. Top picture shows pass-
through from kitchen into the dining room; the cur-
tained wall consists of large glass doors opening out
to the dining terrace, which is shown from the outside
at the right of the lower picture. In the foreground of
which is the living room window looking to the lake.

108

SPACE ORGANIZATION

After the program for a house has been thoroughly analyzed, and after the general relation-
ship of the house to the site has been established, the preliminary space planning begins.

It may have been noticed by this time, that the words "space" and "area" are used a great
deal to describe the places where certain things happen in the house plan. Architects prefer,
usually, to use these terms to "room." A room has too much the connotation of a tightly
enclosed and partitioned cubicle. What the architect designing today's houses is talking about
is literally spoce. One might imagine an unpartitioned rectangle which was a basic house.
Lines might be drawn on the floor, and the owner might say, "This corner will be my dining

^<amXU.|

space, this my 'living' space, this the space where I will sleep, and over here in the corner
will be my cooking space." Just by placing furniture in those parts of the rectangle an
elementary kind of space organization would have resulted. The next step might be to mark
divisions between those areas by placing cabinets and cupboards and other screening
pieces of furniture on the dividing lines between the various spaces. (This was almost precisely
what was done in the case of the house by Robert W. Vahlberg on page 13). So the
old names living room and dining room and entrance hall no longer apply.

Many architects begin this phase of planning by drawing a lot of circles labeled "indoor
living", "play" and so on, and trying them in various relationships, connecting them simply
by single lines, like the diagram on this page, developed by Hugh Stubbins, Jr.

Ultimately this preliminary study of space relationships will develop into a plan similar to
the Stubbins house shown on page 46. The lines in this diagram ore important. They are the
graphic representation of circu/otion— an essential factor in planning space relationships. The
lines must not cross, they must not conflict, they must not be too long. Circulation is the way
one gets into certain spaces, gets out of them, and gets from one space to another. Circulation
can mean hallways (which are often unpleasant and wasteful) or it may mean planning a

109

space which serves other purposes but can be used as a means of access as well. In Breuer's
Geller house on pages 26-23, the children's play space is also circulation to the children's
bedrooms; in Thiry's McDonald house in Seattle the dining space becomes a circulation gallery
leading to the bedroom wing (pages 130-131).

The first element of circulation to consider is the entrance to the house and access from it
to the other areas of the plan— a problem often poorly solved even in otherwise excellent
houses. The observant reader may notice in this book several instances of houses entered at
a point which makes it necessary to travel the length of the living room to reach the bedroom
area. Next is the corridor, which can seldom be eliminated when several rooms of the same
general purpose, such as bedrooms, are strung out in a line. A good plan will keep wasteful
corridor space to a minimum, and make use of it by lining it with storage units (as in the
Langhorst-Ker house on pages 14-15) or by converting some part of it to work or play space
(as Raymond and Rado did in one of the houses on pages 104-105).

The circulation problem most often overlooked, or not solved well, is the one of movement
within rooms. How easily can one get from one spot to another in a living room, without zig-
zagging around furniture or disturbing other people; how easily move, for instance, from
the place where the piano is to the fireplace furniture grouping, or to an end of the room
used for dining, or to the view or the terrace? Finding a good solution to this problem requires
a study of room relationships, relationships between activities within a room and, above all,
between the things that happen inside the walls and those that happen outside.

It is not only circulation that makes space relationship work or fail to work. Spaces in a house
hove a functional relationship to one another. Obvious instances are that the dining room
should be adjacent to the kitchen and bathrooms near sleeping quarters. There are more
subtle functional affinities, however. For instance, architects Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons
placed the kitchen in the Smith house (pages 111-113) so that it is the focal point of the family
living arrangement. Not every family would want this; the Smiths did, and it was made possible
by a very careful study of space relationships. See as another instance how the Hunters
(pages 1 14-1 15) arranged a space at the end of the kitchen so that it could be used as a child's
play spot when supervision from the kitchen was reasonable or necessary.

There is an emotional relationship of spaces, in addition to the functional one. It is possible
to give the impression of enlargement of space, by the way spaces are joined and related to
one another. To take again an elementary instance, the now common integration of the dining
and living rooms into one or contiguous spaces makes each of these two "rooms" seem larger.
For a much more advanced use of this principle, see how the plan of the Ekdale house by
Spaulding & Rex (pages 1 16-1 19) makes the entire area covered by the inverted truss roof seem
infinitely spacious as it wraps around and swallows up the kitchen area.

Under the heading of THE PROGRAM mention was made of changing needs in today's living.
This factor inevitably results in the plan which makes various uses of a space possible. Many
attempts have also been made to plan a house so that it can grow and expand as the family
grows. A special comment on this problem appears a little later in the book, as does a dis-
cussion of the relationship of indoor to outdoor spaces. Today's architects have been able to
approach these many problems of space relationship with freedom and imagination, and it
is a good thing that they have been so freed to experiment in circulation and functional and
emotional relationships, because other aspects of today's design have increased these prob-
lems, by demanding orientation toward sun and view, by asking for ventilation and air circula-
tion as well as human circulation, and in many other ways. All these things must work together,
but always with good relationship of usable spaces.

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA, continued

The space organization in this true form or ranch
house centers entirely around the kitchen, which was
the basic requirement of the clients, Mr. and Mrs.
Albert M. Smith. Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons faith-
fully followed Mrs. Smith's wishes — based on her
own series of studies of the plan — to have the kitchen
and work areas in the center of the house with living
space on one side and sleeping on the opposite side.
This central portion is similar in height and finishes to
the rest of the house and has sitting and dining
space, making it virtually a "country" kitchen. The
secret of success in using this room as the circulation
and focal point is its generous size. For informal
entertaining guests may relax on a comfortable built-
in sofa facing the raised fireplace which is used for
charcoal broiling (photographs on this page). For
large-scale entertaining the dining area and its built-
in bar are used jointly with the living room, both of
which open onto terrace porches. Because of the long
hot summers in San Joaquin Valley, the owners did
not wont the direct rays of the midday or afternoon
sun coming into the house. A deep overhang protects
the wide porch to the east and the windows of the
living room and work center from glare (see photo-
graphs on preceding page). On the west a partially
roofed garden terrace is additionally sheltered by a
trellis extending from the overhang and a cedar board
fence at one end. Two high clerestory strips of glare-
resistant gloss, extending the length of the house,
give a difFused light and an atmospheric quality of
coolness. All walls are of California incense cedar,
used vertically. Ceilings are of rough-faced redwood
boards. All wood is kept natural; the exterior treated
with clear preservative, and interior walls with color-
less wax. Except for the dining table, piano and
chairs, and a few coffee tables, everything in the
house is built-in and was designed by Mr. Smith to
fit various special uses. All cabinet work is cedar, ex-
cept for birch cabinets and counters in the kitchen.

According to the architects the use of wood through-
out, "gives a feeling of one episode and is one secret
for bringing dignity and character into structures that
are either small or of necessity must be divided into
small and various shaped compartments. The relief
comes from the varying heights, from the changing
outlooks and in the furnishings."

112

WURSTER, BERNARDI and EMMONS,
ARCHITECTS

Enclosed Garden

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HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

At first glance this seems like a fairly conventional
house plan, with a large living room facing the Ver-
mont hills to the west, a bedroom wing slanted so
that the rooms face more to the south, and a service
area at the north end of the plan. However, Dr. and
Mrs. John Murtagh have many unusual aspects of
space organization subtly designed into their home.
For instance, since the doctor often receives night
calls, the master bedroom-dressing room arrangement
is such that a sliding wall can be pulled across between
the two rooms; this has the additional advantage in
the New Hampshire climate of providing a warm
place to dress on cold mornings. Also worth noting is
the arrangement of the kitchen and laundry, with a
corner of the laundry room (behind the counter cabinet
with drawers shown in the photograph below, right)
used as play space, under supervision from the kitchen.

Finally, the bedroom to the north, which is now occu-
pied by a living-in baby sitter, is so arranged with
its own bath and its own entrance, that it con be
rented at some time in the future. The reasons for
the west and south orientation should be clear from
the photograph (at the bottom of opposite page) which
shows the view toward which the site gently slopes.
The house is of steel frame with open-web joists, a
wood curtain wall and some stone-wall accents filling
out the frame. Radiant floor panels, combined with
0 studied use of solar radiation, hove resulted in a
most economical heating system. The "box" that
frames the west window helps cut western sun, and
provides a place for exterior blinds. Openings in the
north and south walls of the living room hove been
carefully placed for maximum ventilation to entice
prevailing breezes in the summer.

E. H. and M. K. HUNTER, ARCHITECTS

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Entry

Hall

Living Room

Planting Box

Dining Room

Kitchen

Laundry

Service Entry

Children' Play Area

10.

Service Yard

11.

Storage

12.

Garage

13.

Heater

14.

Coats

15.

Powder Room

16.

Linen Closet

17.

Bath

18.

Dressing Room

19.

Master Bed Room

20.

Bed Room No. 2

21.

Study

22.

Terrace

115

SAN PEDRO, CALIFORNIA

When Mr. and Mrs. Arch E. Ekdale invited Spaulding
and Rex to design a house for them, they had no
rigid preconceived ideas, but an extremely brood
program with only one real requirement — complete
flexibility in the use of the house for an informal way
of living. They hod a beautiful site in the Polos Verdes
hills, with spectacular views extending to the moun-
tains above Pasadena and toward the Pacific Ocean
coast to the south, to which they had a strong at-
tachment not only because of the views but because
they hod personally planted and nourished to near
maturity several hundred trees. Situated on a plateau,
with bonks sloping away on oil sides except the
approach side, the house was oriented around the
views. The square glass enclosure is framed to the
four corners with inverted steel trusses with the low
point in the exact center of the area, and a continu-
ous slope in each direction from this point to the
outer edge of the eave.

SUMNER SPAULDING and JOHN REX, ARCHITECTS

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SAN PEDRO, CALIFORNIA, continued

118

The Ekdales' requirement for flexibility and infor-
mality has been brilliantly solved by the large square
glass enclosure with living, dining, cooking and loung-
ing areas informally located within. The living and
dining spaces wrap around the kitchen with only a
seven-foot high wall to form a screen. The kitchen is
equipped with charcoal grille, soda fountain and bar.

The two bedrooms are located in a set-back fashion
for view and cross ventilation. A sliding partition
closing off the master bedroom may be opened to
expand the lounge and living space. The guest room
and dressing-room remain Isolated and private. Some
floors, including the terrace, ore concrete covered
with terrazzo; others ore asphalt tile. Finish materials
are redwood and fieldstone, with some hardwood
cabinet work. Lighting is from recessed fixtures. Cur-
tains and overhangs provide sun control.

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MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

The space-use scheme in this house for the Horry A.
Blackmuns is a simple but effective one: the reason-
ably large lot in a residential neighborhood which
will ultimately be well-settled looks toward an open
view to the south for several miles, and a limited
view to the east. Family living is therefore divided into
a living-dining-kitchen block which opens wide to the
south, a bedroom wing with all of the rooms oriented
toward the southeast, below the bedroom area a unit
which includes the maid's room and, entered through
the garage or from the upper floor of the house, a
large playroom for the three children, again facing
the west view and opening onto an outdoor play
terrace. Each of these three elements deserves study
for its use of space. The kitchen itself, as the photo-

graph indicates, is unusually well studied in its dis-
position of storage and work accommodations. In
the bedroom part of the house the stairs split the
plan into a children's end and a parents' end; adults
have not only a generous sleeping room, but an
adjacent study where Mr. Blackmun, who is an attor-
ney, can do his own "homework." The advantage of
the lower-floor playroom with its separate entrance,
for three active young ladies under eight years old,
is obvious. The house is radiant heated, with zoned
thermostatic controls. The controversy between floor
and ceiling panels is here nicely resolved; play and
living areas, where a warm floor is pleasant, have
floor heating; kitchen and bedroom spaces get their
radiation from the ceiling.

120

THORSHOV & CERNY, ARCHITECTS

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, continued

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

In the mild climate of southern California planning
for outdoor living space is almost equally important
with planning the interior space. With this in mind
architect Carl Maston provided for ample terraces
opening off the main rooms of his own house; a sunny
one outside the living room, one shaded with toll
eucalyptus for dining, and a secluded one outside the
master bedroom. The three terraces were shaped out
of the hillside site with a bulldozer. Below is shown
the raised bedroom terrace with a brick retaining
wall. Situated in a wooded canyon, the house is
oriented to the south with a view of the city below.
Late afternoon sun is eliminated by the hills to the
west. Exterior walls ore of redwood siding; interiors
are cedar plywood in living room and one bedroom,
paster in kitchen and baths, gum plywood in other
rooms. Entry gallery has brick floor; kitchen, work-
rooms, bathrooms have asphalt tile; living, dining
rooms, bedrooms and stairway are carpeted.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, continued

Within the house the one major large space is organ-
ized to serve four ways, with only a fireplace wall In
its center to divide the functions of living, dining,
music corner, and circulation gallery. The fireplace is
used dually for living and dining rooms. The spa-
ciousness of this main area is further enhanced by
the sliding glass walls which open it to two terraces.
The kitchen is well located to serve dining both indoors
and out. On the main fioor are also located two
workrooms, one for Mrs. Maston's sewing activities,
and the other for Mr. Maston. Making the most of
the hillside site, Mr. Maston placed the two bedrooms
and bath on the upper floor, thus providing privacy
for the sleeping area. The second-story level is ap-
proached by a stairway leading directly up from the
entrance gallery (photograph at right), a scheme
which neatly avoids trespassing through any other
part of the house. This "gallery" is not only a pleasant
space in itself, but it is the key to the plan arrange-
ment, giving access to all the ports of the house.

CARL LOUIS MASTON, ARCHITECT

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124

BIG HILL, KENTUCKY

For a family with two college-age children a fore-
sighted requirement was for a suite of rooms which
might be used in several ways: by the children when
they ore home on vacations; as a separate guest
suite or for rental to faculty members or married
students of nearby Berea College during the school
year. To meet this alternate use W. Danforth Compton
treated the main floor as a one-floor house, and
planned the lower floor to be usable as a separate
apartment when the children are away. The parents,
Mr. and Mrs. Allen Franke, are both musicians (the
wife teaches music at Berea College). They entertain
faculty and students frequently, give small concerts,
end occasional outdoor buffet suppers. Weather al-
lows enjoyment of the outdoors eight months of the
year, so terraces were planned as on additional space
for entertaining, and this outdoor space planning
takes full cognizance of the climate. The lower level
terrace is a cool spot during the summer, since the
house shades it from the south sun, and the rise in
ground and retaining wall protect it from the western
rays. A fireplace was located here for summer picnic
use. The south terrace is used in the spring and fall,
and is protected from severe northeast fall winds. Con-
struction is wood frame with stone bearing walls. All
exterior siding is rough sawn poplar, cut locally.
Floors are black walnut; ceilings of all rooms on the
main floor hove acoustic plaster. An interesting detail
is the barn-door track from which the wood-sliding
doors are hung. Windows are wood casement.

126

W. DANFORTH COMPTON, DESIGNER

HILLSBOROUGH, CALIFORNIA

Segregation for privacy was the mandatory starting
point for this house designed for Mr. and Mrs. Marshall
Hale, Jr. and their three children. They required that .
there should be separate wings for living, family sleep-
ing rooms, overnight guests, and service. Along with
this seclusion for various activities was a desire for
close relationship with the outdoors for each of these
areas. An admirable solution was achieved by Clar-
ence Mayhew through an H-shoped plan with two
wings connected by a gallery with a midway change
of level. This gallery, with one floor-to-ceiling wall
of glass overlooking the bedroom patio, subdivides
these two wings into four separate areas. At one end
it separates family bedrooms from the guest suite,
and at the other end the living area from the service
wing. This splayed-out arrangement has the added
advantage of providing secluded garden areas: one
for the bedroom wing; a terrace off of the living
room, shielded by the wall of the service wing, which
in turn makes a screen for the service yard. Relation-
ship to the out-of-doors is further heightened by well-
established live oak trees retained close to the house,
and in some instances even allowed to grow through
the wide overhangs. Indoor planting spaces also
connect to outside gardens through wide glass walls.
The house follows the natural slope of the land, step-
ping up on a gentle grade via the gallery from the
bedroom wing to the living wing. Heating is supplied
by three gas furnaces: one for the main living-dining
wing, another for the bedroom wing and guest suite;
and the third for the service wing. These supply forced
warm air, with filters and humidity control.

CLARENCE W. MAYHEW, ARCHITECT V .- -'Sl^v-Z^i^M'-^

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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

This house, owned by the Charles H. McDonalds, is
a good example of planning space for privacy on
a typical city lot. By using the device of on almost-
enclosed patio garden, together with another varia-
tion of a "circulation gallery" (compare with the
Maston house on page 123), Paul Thiry has made
maximum use of the sixty-foot site. Although the living
room is on the street side of the house, it opens
primarily to the patio, and connects directly to the
wide dining and circulation corridor. A living hall
adjacent to the bedroom wing of the plan faces the
third side of the patio and completes its very open
"enclosure." Privacy for the bedrooms is obtained by
screening at the end of the dining hall. Thus a great
degree of openness and spaciousness is obtained, and
all principal rooms have a garden exposure. The
design makes an admirable use of plywood, stained
yellow, on the exterior. Where brick is used, as for
the chimney, it is painted white. Much of the furniture
was designed by Thiry, to be in character with the
built-in cabinet work. Color is also used carefully to
add to the feeling of space on the interior; natural
finish on the birch plywood walls and a yellowish-tan
tile for the floors complement well the green of the
planting in the always-visible patio garden.

PAUL THIRY, ARCHITECT

130

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ALTADENA, CALIFORNIA

Here is a plan sufficiently flexible so that fairly large
groups can be entertained and yet the family (Mr.
and Mrs. John Wilfong and their daughter) is not
normally burdened with too great living space. Use
of wide "sliding panels makes this possible: the living
room and alcove can be completely sealed off by one
sliding wall; the den, combined with the extensive
deck and loggia, provides ample living space for the
family alone, and can be further enlarged by other
sliding panels between the loggia and the dining
room. Not only is an unusual degree of flexibility
thus obtained; the various combinations of space rela-
tionships also develop many possibilities of views and
vistas. Relationship of indoor to outdoor areas is
retained even at night by a use of exterior lighting.
Although most of the major rooms face south toward
the San Gabriel valley, the view northward is a dra-
matic mountain aspect, and dining room, kitchen and
breakfast alcove (often used by the family for dining
space) look toward it. To obtain south and east light
In these rooms and in the interior baths and hall, a
system of four transverse clerestory strips slope up-
ward toward the south sun, in the opposite direction
to the slope of the main roof plane of the house.
Construction is a simple wood frame. Interior finishes
ore plaster except for an extensive use of birch ply-
wood in the dining room, den, loggia and kitchen.

GREGORY AIN, JOSEPH JOHNSON
and ALFRED DAY, ARCHITECTS

Expansion

If one wishes, for either economical or personal reasons, to start his house on a modest scale,
or expects the size of his family to increase, then foresight in planning the present or first
stage to expand easily and logically to the second stage will greatly facilitate its ultimate com-
pletion. The two following houses are good examples of pre-planning with the initial expectation
of increasing the size of a house. It should be kept in mind that even with the most careful
pre-planning the requirements may hove changed considerably by the time the needs for
expansion actually arise. Therefore, it is probably wise not to plan the addition in detail at the
time the original house is built, but rather to allow for an adjustable future program. Also, a
consideration in planning the first stage is that some spaces within the basic house will probably
later change their function, and should therefore be schemed so that this con be accomplished
with a minimum of physical change. One of the things that can be done is to place the house
on the site in such a location that expansion is not blocked and also in such a way that desirable
orientations will be available. Even landscaping should be so arranged that permanent large
planting would not have to be removed. Albert Frey's own house (pages 136-138) was able to
grow without destroying the relationship of pool and house— in fact, with an improvement in
that relationship — because the possibility had been foreseen.

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Built for one of the partners in on architectural firm,
this house of the James Ingraham Clarks is planned
carefully for expansion as the family grows. It turns
away from the street — originally a quiet thorough-
fare which has since become much more busy, partly
because people come to see the house — and faces
toward the south and southeast on o sloping site which
ends in a wooded creek bed. When the house was
built there was one child; now there are two, and
family plans ore for two more. Hence it was desired
that the house could grow both in bedroom accom-
modations and in living space. Facing the street is
a "core" which will not change: utility room, kitchen,
laundry and garage. Past these rooms as one enters
the house is a living room which is at present reason-
ably large, but certainly not oversized. In the future,
OS the plan indicates, this room will be extended, and
even may have a porch on the end as a final expan-
sion. The solution to the addition of bedrooms is
made possible by a steep drop of fifteen feet in the
site at the point where the bedroom wing breaks from
the main house. Under the present two bedrooms there
is now on open terraced space which can, when the
family has grown, be converted into a lower bed-
room floor with three rooms. Mr. Clark is thoroughly
objective about the value or lock of value of a num-
ber of ideas that went into the house. Orientation for
sun control, studied mathematically, has worked out
excellently. Plans to use a certain amount of site
prefabrication — panels constructed on the property
and raised into place — did not work so well, be-
cause of unfamilcority of the available labor with
this system. There is "nearly too much" storage space
in cupboards, drawers and shelves. These are minor
troubles, however. In general the dry-wall construc-
tion, the acoustic ceilings, the efficient kitchen layout,
and the orientation hove worked very well.

RUNNELLS, CLARK, WAUGH &
MATSUMOTO, ARCHITECTS

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PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

136

Also designed for one member of an architectural
firm, but in this case a bachelor rather than head of
a growing family, Albert Frey's own home in the
desert illustrates the fact that a house planned for
expansion can grow reasonably, even though the
additions that actually come about are not exactly
those that were originally intended. The first very
simple structure, shown above, depended on an out-
door pool and planting, together with sliding glass
doors and partitions, to provide pleasant open space
and dramatic views in all directions, and at the some
time ample through ventilation and protection from
the sun. Mr. Frey's plans were to odd a bedroom wing
on one side and a living room on the other. When
the time came to do it, however, he decided to sim-
plify this scheme and extend only in a westerly direc-
tion with a combined sleeping-living room, converting
the original space to dining room use. The only other
change was the addition of a trellis over the walks
around the swimming pool, tying it and the planting
into the house composition, as the large picture on
the opposite page shows. Construction was simple
and inexpensive for both stages of building; a stand-
ard wood frame is sheathed with thin, prefabricated
materials such as corrugated metal and cement asbes-
tos board, which reflect rather than store sun's rays.

The original living room, shown in the photograph at
the right, is indicated by the shaded area of the plan.
To see how this room has been converted to dining
space connecting with the new living-sleeping room,
see the photograph at bottom of page 138.

The photograph below looks from the present dining
room into the new living-sleeping room. Above is
shown the interior of this added space, with its cone-
shaped fireplace hood. The simple corrugated ceiling,
which repels heat, has acoustic properties and forms
a pleasant texture. Looking beyond is the open-roofed
solarium with its fountain pool.

138

Indoor-Outdoor Relationships

Perhaps the most noticeable innovation in domestic architecture in the past decade or two
has been the increasingly close relationship of indoors to outdoors. There are a number of
factors which have contributed to, or been responsible for, this radical departure from the
closed-in feeling which earlier generations were accustomed to. Sociologically, the major reason
has been the shrinkage of the size of the family and therefore the size of the domicile.
£conom/ca//y— and hand in hand with the sociological factor— the increasing high cost of
building has forced us to accept a dwelling of reduced square footage. To compensate for
this shrinkage of interior space the house has been extended to the outdoors both visually
and physically. Technologically, the production of large panes of glass and the concomitant
scientific contribution of improved heating systems have made it possible to give a more open
feeling to houses without sacrifice of comfort. These combined factors have in turn elicited
from the present-day home dweller a psycho/og/ca/ response, emotionally and esthetically,
as he discovered that he enjoyed and could moke use of this interpenetration of indoors
and outdoors. This has had a profound influence on space organization.

Physically, living space is expanded beyond the four walls of a house by opening large sections
of wall to gardens, terraces, patios, courtyards, and even balconies. The Maynard Lyndon
house on pages 200-201 and the Green house on pages 140-143 are only two of the many
examples in this book of the interfusion of indoor-outdoor living space. With the device of
disappearing walls interior space flows into exterior space with natural continuity. The "dis-
appearing walls" may slide open sideways, lift up to the ceiling, or roll down into a pocket
below floor level. Planning of exterior space becomes equally important with planning interior
space if this merger is to be completely successful and satisfying. Bringing the outdoors in is
another means of physically linking the two; sometimes by a planted area inside to match a
garden bed outside, as in the Henry Hill house in Cormel (see pages 58-61) which has a sunken
garden below the floor level of the living room parallel to the plant bed outside. In the same
house this link is carried still further by allowing a spreading tree in one corner of the garden
patio actually to grow through the glass wall of the master bedroom.

Visually one's horizon and sense of spaciousness may be increased by the use of large glass
window walls. These may carry the eye out to a sweeping view of mountains, lake or ocean in
the distance, or to the more intimate scale of surrounding trees and flower gardens. The use of
existing trees is one way of capitalizing on the natural setting to fuse house and landscape. In
the Mayhew-designed house on pages 128-129, abundant live oak trees were retained close to
the house and in some instances allowed to grow through the roof overhangs. The reflection of
the lacy pattern of the leaves in the large glass walls gives the impression of no barrier between
indoors and out. To make the actual dimensions of the enclosed space only a small port of the
apparent space, extensive lawns carry out from the living room of the house designed by
Douglas Honnold, shown on pages 140 to 143. Another means of removing the visual barrier
Is to have a continuous plane which carries the eye beyond the wall of the house, as in the
Belluschi-Burkes house (pages 149-151) which extends the living room ceiling out through the
glass wall to form the roof overhang for the terrace courtyard, and in the house by Soriano
(pages 196-198) which carries the concrete-slab floor outside the curtain wall of the house.

139

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

Bringing together the indoors and the outdoors re-
quires either an isolated piece of property where
draperies and curtains and bhnds ore not necessary
for privacy, or a plan that turns in on itself and finds
its own privacy by surrounding an open court or
patio. Here, in the home of Mr. and Mrs. John L.
Greene and their two children both things have been
done. The hilltop site is an isolated one, overlooking
West Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, and the living
areas are designed with this view in mind, facing
toward the southeast at the dramatic panorama shown
below. Extensive lawns carry out from the living room,
making the actual dimensions of the enclosed space
only a small part of the apparent space. But since
the site is also breezy, another extension into the
outdoors takes the form of an almost totally enclosed
"living court" developed around a swimming pool.
The photograph and plan below indicate how this
was accomplished: with the car shelter forming one

side of the enclosure; the bedroom wing (alongside
which is the brick-paved approach to the house) the
next; the entrance to the living-dining area and its
inner terrace the third; and the service wing the
fourth side of the quadrangle. How pleasantly this
enclosed atrium has been designed and landscaped
the pictures on the opposite page show. At the top
of the page is a view out from the dining terrace;
below at the left is the approach from the car shelter
to the entry; at the right, below, one looks from the
car shelter end of the pool toward the living room.
Internal organization of the house Is basically simple,
despite the wandering of the plan. Two children's
bedrooms and a master bedroom occupy their own
wing, and between this part of the house and the
living room is a study where Mr. Greene, a radio
writer, works on his scripts. Terraces extend the din-
ing room in two directions, so that wide choice is
offered in the place and the manner of serving food.

DOUGLAS HONNOLD, ARCHITECT

Above, the built-in sofa arranged in the living room
to face out toward the view shown at the right. Across
page, the two top pictures show the built-in storage
unit which backs up the sofa on the dining room side.
Below is shown the dining terrace on the west side of
the house, leading off to the lawn.

142

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, continued

144

CARMEL, CALIFORNIA

In designing a house for Dr. and Mrs. George Miller,
Gordon Drake was faced with a very different prob-
lem from the one of grand views and open isolated
location. Here the lot wos a typical suburban measure-
ment of 60 X 100 feet, and reolisticolly the Millers
assumed that in time they would be surrounded by
not-too-attractive houses built close to the lot line. Yet
owner and designer wished to take full advantage of
the pleasant climate and the western and southern
exposures by making possible as much outdoor living
as could be arranged. The solution is a series of
fenced courts or gardens, so that each room in the
house has its own corresponding outdoor space. One
enters the house between the living room and the
dining room; the entry, which is not enclosed by any
partitions, is the only "corridor" space in the house.
From here one turns to the living room with its court
on the south. On the western side of the living room
is another court or garden, which serves for outdoor

dining, and on which the smaller of the two bedrooms
opens as well. The master bedroom has its own garden
to the east. Obviously the difficulty in this plan ar-
rangement was that the garden courts became small
and had to be fully fenced to gain privacy, as the
photographs indicate. And yet the landscape archi-
tect, Douglas Baylis, has done much to moke these
small gardens seem larger than they really are, by
planting which continues up the walls themselves, in
the form of hung plant boxes which hold bright on-
nuals. The three courts are shown in the photographs
on this page and the opposite one: far left, the master
bedroom and its outdoor space; left, below, the din-
ing court, which also serves the smaller bedroom;
below on this page the living court, with the covered
walk from the carport at the left of the picture. Con-
struction of the house is based on a three-foot module,
with built-up wood posts faced with redwood siding.
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146

WOODBRIDGE DICKINSON JR. &
LAWRENCE TEST, ARCHITECTS

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

Mrs. Thompson Dickinson's house is planned for a
woman living alone, who entertains large groups and
who wanted a guest suite well separated from her
own quarters. The plan reflects this program, with the
two sleeping areas at the extremes of the house, and
the maid's room strategically located near the
owner's wing and yet adjacent to the service area.
The most successful aspect of the house, however, is
the pleasant inter-relationship of the living room-din-
ing room-patio space, designed primarily for enter-
taining. One end of the living room is not open to the
patio, and here, where conversation groups may form,
a window is turned to look out toward the Sierra
Madre mountains. The rest of the living-dining space
is closely related to the patio. Both uses of this space
are shown by the picture below. Fine, large existing
trees were saved and integrated with the patio gar-

den. On the following page are views of the outdoor
space from inside the living room, and looking to-
ward the connecting hallway which leads to the
owner's rooms. Paving of the patio uses an interesting
technique — wide squares of concrete were washed
to expose the colored aggregate. This paving, as the
plan indicates, was continued into the floor of the hall-
way, to give one walking along this gallery-like
corridor a feeling of actually being outdoors. To make
the sense of indoor-outdoor relationship complete,
finishes both inside and out have been mode to tie
in with the surroundings as much as possible: con-
struction is frame and stucco, with the stucco colored
a light "adobe" and the exterior trim and siding
stained and bleached to give a weathered effect. The
living room walls are finished with grass cloth, and
the trim is a natural finished redwood.

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, continued

PORTLAND, OREGON

The visitor's first glimpse of this house for Dr. and Mrs.
D. C. Burkes does not give a hint of the indoor-outdoor
relationship which becomes apparent as soon as one
enters. Its serene entrance side, with carport and ample
turn-around auto court, is unpretentious in its simplicity
and discreetly conceals from the public what lies
beyond. The surprise impact comes after passing
through the simple entrance, at left, to the sudden
contrast of a spacious living room with a dramatic
view of Mt. Hood and the Cascade Range on one side
and its opposite wall of glass which opens to the
intimate courtyard. The site, in a residential neighbor-
hood on a hill overlooking Portland, also contributes
to the privacy of the occupants since it is almost
peninsular in shape as well as a cul-de-sac. Privacy
is further promoted by individual, special entrances
to the house: in addition to the main entrance door,
there are doorways opening directly to the kitchen-
laundry, the storage work room, the private guest
wing, and from the carport to courtyard.

149

PORTLAND, OREGON, continued

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PIETRO BELLUSCHI, ARCHITECT

According to architect Pietro Belluschi "the plan ex-
emplifies what is known as an open or free-flowing
plan, with the courtyard used as a landscape acces-
sory to the house." The skill with which he has accom-
plished the merging of one space with another, while
at the same time achieving a sense of seclusion for
each, is readily apparent in the plan above and the
photographs on the opposite page. The study and
master bedroom suite are separated from the living
room only by a massive fireplace wall, the kitchen by
a brick partition which houses a barbecue and set-in
cooking unit. By extending the living room ceiling out
through the glass wall to form the roof overhang for
the terrace courtyard, Mr. Belluschi successfully
merges outdoor and indoor living spaces. Dining
space is so arranged that the Burkes can eat inside,
with a magnificent view of Mt. Hood, or outside on
the adjacent dining terrace. Both dining space and
kitchen have direct access to this terrace. In fact all
rooms, with the exception of the study, have direct
access to outdoors. Wide overhangs extending out
from the flat roof plane surround the exterior of the
house, and afford protection for the paved walkways
as well as the window walls. Exterior walls are cedar.

150

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ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE

The external environment in which a house is located affects to a very large degree its design
and its orientation. In addition, a universal requirement in building any house is internal com-
fort. These have been a constant factor, through every period of architecture; a shelter which
protects one from the outside elements of weather— heat and cold, rain and snow, unwelcome
winds— and which creates inside an environment of comfort— in temperatures, ventilation,
illumination, and even sound. Architects today— and in the past few decades— have met this
challenge with increasing skill and ability.

Although climatic environment is the universal and constant factor influencing the design of
buildings, it varies greatly in its behavior in different parts of the country. The weather in the
northeast and the middlewest— with extremes of temperature making sun desirable in winter
and unwelcome in summer— is radically different from the weather in the southern and Gulf
states— with their long summers of heat and high humidity— where every device for capturing
breezes and excluding the sun is important (an excellent example of designing for natural
coolness and ventilation is Dean Henry Kamphoefner's house on pages 154-157). In the
northwest with many months of rainfall, and in the southwest with its arid hot months for most
of the year, the design solutions are as different as the climates themselves (as indicated in the
house by Belluschi, pages 149-151, and the ones in Arizona designed by Blaine Drake and
Schweikher & Elting on pages 159-160 and 166-167). In contrast to these is the Polevitzky house
(pages 170-172) in sub-tropical Florida where year-round living can be almost completely
outdoors because of the equitable climate.

Among the several "natural" design elements which have been devised by architects in recent
years to invite or repel the sun is the overhang or "eyebrow." With the increasing use of large
glass areas, often oriented to the south, the benefits of solar heat may be enticed into the
house (and incidentally reduce heating costs). In the regions where this is desirable in the cold
months but undesirable in the summer, the overhang which is scientifically calculated with the
sun's travel admits the low winter sun and excludes the high rays in the period between the
spring and autumn solstices. Still another means of making nature work for your comfort is
orientation of the major openings of the house to catch the prevailing breezes, as many
of the houses on the following pages illustrate. Where the path of prevailing breezes and
the heat of the sun coincide, louvered walls have proven to be a good answer. In some
instances this may take the form of almost an entire wall of louvers, which can be closed against
the sun and hot daytime exterior temperatures and opened up to pull in the cool evening and
night air, as in the houses on pages 1 54-1 57 and 1 68-1 69. Or it may be the installation of louvers
or transoms at floor level, below large areas of fixed glass. These may be used in combination
with high transoms (as in the Atlanta house on pages 164-165) or clerestories to create a cross
ventilation, with the cool air coming in at ground level and the warm air going out at the roof-
level openings. Still another effective device for cooling is the use of ventilated roof and wall
construction, or of roof pools or a roof-spraying system to reduce the interior temperatures
by at least ten to fifteen degrees. A particularly effective solution for year-round control of
temperatures and sun is the use of alternating wall panels for different seasons of the year,
OS illustrated in the Gerald Loeb house designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris, on pages 173-175.

152

Manufacturers of building materials and equipment have been very much aware, in recent
years, of the problem of control of the interior environment. While many designers have been
experimenting with natural means of ventilation and protection from or invitation to solar
rays, and with the other design means that we have mentioned, others have been working to
help produce mechanical control devices. In general, the trend of these investigations and
their results have been in the direction of addifional use of exisfing building elements rather than
the introduction of new pieces of isolated mechanical equipment. This is true of heating, lighting,
and acoustical and thermal insulation advances.

To explain what this implies, let us consider the mechanical concept which has gained most
rapidly in public favor in the last decade— radiant heat. In the first place the principle is good:
control of the body's heat loss by radiation rather than convection (air movement) is more
salutary and more pleasant. But the thing that has appealed most to designers of buildings is
that the walls and floor and ceilings have to be there anyway, and if heating pipes can be
imbedded in them so that the whole wall or floor or ceiling acts as a heating unit, so much the
better— it is then possible to get away from the individual, isolated heating unit.

In the second most important way that man artificially controls his environment— the provision
of lighting when nature's illumination fades— the principle of using a total existing building
element does not yet seem possible. We do not have any lighting device comparable to radiant
panel heating, although some recent announcements of glowing glass panels may hint that
that day is coming. The closest approach to it yet common is the use of indirect lighting, from
behind strips which also serve a structural or a decorative purpose (as in Bernard Kessler's
design on pages 182-183 and Alexander Cochran's house, pages 22-25. The object is to provide
a luminous environment close to nature's own in place of spotty isolated fixtures.

The availability of sheets or panels of cushioning, absorbing or reflecting materials has been
another invitation to the architect to combine functions of materials. The load-bearing masonry
wall was an excellent insulator but for a number of reasons (some of which are explained in
the introduction to the section of this book on Construction) it has been largely eliminated from
residential building. In its place, to insulate from sound waves as well as heat waves, we now
have the doubled, separated sheets of insulating glass, numerous board sheets that can serve
as insulator and finished ceiling or finished wall, sprayed-on materials which eliminate the
need for plaster and paint (as in Paul Beidler's Rose house on pages 180-181), sheets of
reflective metal materials which can be either built in to the construction or become an essential
part of the construction itself (see architect Frey's own house in California on pages 136-138).

Not all heating, lighting or insulating techniques can become an integral part of the structure
in this way, however. Another lesson that architects and engineers hove learned in recent
years is that it is the quo//'ty of the atmosphere we live in that makes us healthy or unhealthy,
comfortable or uncomfortable. Measuring the temperature with a thermometer is not enough
to tell us the nature of the air around us. Is it clean? Has it the correct degree of humidity for
the temperature? Is it odorless? Is the heat loss from the occupants of the space evenly drawn
(70° in one part of a room may be uncomfortable, while it is satisfactory in another)? Not all
of these problems can be answered by large reflective surfaces, and there must be reliance in
some parts of the country for certain purposes on equipment as well as materials— the air-
conditioning system which functions winter and summer in the Weiners' Gamm house, for
example (pages 178-179). There cannot be any one answer to the control of the environment
within and around houses. The thing that is most important today is that problems are being
recognized, studied and solved. That the solutions involve natural design elements, use of
materials, and advances in mechanical equipment is an indication of the extent and scope
of the studies.

153

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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

HENRY I. KAMPHOEFNER, ARCHITECT
GEORGE MATSUMOTO, ASSOCIATE

In a climate where the summer months — from June
until October — hove temperatures which range from
the 80's to 104 degrees, and the humidity varies be-
tween 70 and 90 percent, ventilation for comfort is
a primary consideration. Dean Henry Kamphoefner,
who designed this house in Raleigh, North Corolina
for himself reports that the heat of the summer months
influenced the design to a great degree. Because
about eighty percent of the breeze is from the south-
west, he oriented the living and sleeping spaces in
that direction. To protect the living room from the
heat of the western sun he developed a louvered
breeze-wall (shown in the photographs at left and of
bottom of facing page). This wall is kept closed by
a series of solid double doors during the heat of
the day and opened after sundown to draw in the
cool evening air. The glass walls of the living and
dining rooms face the southeast (see photo of top of
opposite page) and are protected by wide eaves
against solar heat and rain. To draw the cool ground-
level air in vent sashes are placed at floor level be-
low the fixed glass panels; to exhaust the warm air
out louvered transoms ore provided in the clerestory
above. This simple but effective device for ventilation
was suggested to Dean Kamphoefner by the action
of air in a silo where the cool air rushing in at the
bottom openings would rise and force the worm air
out at the top. In the bedroom wing, he placed above
the guest bedroom and two bathrooms a clerestory
with ventilating louvers (see detail below). The air
moves in from the direction of the prevailing breeze
through the large casement windows on the south-
west, and OS it becomes worm moves out through the
high clerestory louvers on the opposite side. These
have top-hung and inswinging plywood panels, with
friction stays to hold the panels in any desired posi-
tion; they may be completely closed in cool weather.

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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, continued

After one summer in the house Dean Kamphoefner
reports, as a result of his design for ventilation, that
the indoor temperatures during the hottest port of
the day were often thirteen to fourteen degrees
cooler than the outdoors. Cork and flagstone floors
add to the sense of coolness (see photo at bottom of
opposite page, of dining room looking toward living
room). Floors ore radiant heated in the winter months.
Exterior walls are of roman brick, which has also been
carried out in the retaining wall at the entrance side
(see photograph below).

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PHOENIX, ARIZONA

The basic premise for this house in the desert, de-
signed by Blaine Drake, was "comfort or shelter from
the Arizona sun." It was planned to obtain winter sun
and to ignore summer's hot sun. To achieve this
Mr. Drake incorporated large south windows to take
advantage of the desirable winter sun and thus aug-
ment the radiant floor heat in the cold months. There
are practically no openings on the west side of the
house where the summer sun is not desirable. Wide
protective overhangs ore used around the house where
necessary for shelter. Planting, especially on the west
side, gives additional protection. To open up the view
of Comelback Mountain to the east floor-to-ceiling
window walls are on two sides of the dining room. A
curving wall bordering the site gives privacy from the
road on this side of the house. The dining terrace
(photo below), also on the east, is screened on top
as well OS at the sides for sunny dining in winter and
for insect-free outdoor evenings in summer. A cov-
ered terrace on the west side, adjacent to the swim-
ming pool, catches the prevailing winds and gives
swimmers o choice between sun and shade. Planting
areas inside help to keep some moisture in the air.
The living room, kitchen, bedrooms and studio are all
accessible from the front entrance, thus avoiding mak-
ing hallways of rooms. Grey pumice-block walls, red
(less reflective of sunlight) concrete floors and soft
fabric colors odd to the feeling of comfort and cool-
ness. Skylights of heat-resisting glass in the baths and
kitchen give light with privacy.

BLAINE DRAKE, ARCHITECT

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PHOENIX, ARIZONA, continued

Built-in sofas and cabinets of natural birch in
the living room contrast pleasantly with grey
pumice-block walls, which make a good neu-
tral background for colors.

At left: Covered terrace near the swimming
pool on the west side provides shade and
catches the prevailing breezes.

Below: The studio Is separated from main
part of the house by its only corridor, may
be used as a guest bedroom.

160

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA, continued

San Joaquin Valley, where this house for Mr. and
Mrs. Henry Holt is situated, experiences extremes in
climate — with intensely hot summers and winters
which are cold and raw. Architect Joseph Esherick
oriented the house to catch the west wind in summer
and to provide shelter out of doors from the bitter
winter wind which comes from the north-northwest.
The one-room wide U-shaped plan gives most rooms
the benefit of the cooling west wind on summer nights.
By facing the house southeast, shelter from the west
and north winds was provided on the garden side. A
wide "garden" porch, facing east to avoid sun and
glare (see photos on preceding page) extends the
entire length of the house, and is covered on the two
wings by the sloping roof. In the center portion, open-
ing from the living room and its parallel indoor
garden gallery, the roof is omitted to bring the sun
into this area (see photographs at right). The dining
room, shown below, is in the south wing, and has
glass openings on two sides. Materials and colors
were all chosen to create a cool relaxed feeling. The
two-inch plank roof with shingle lath and shakes over
the large attic, and the brick veneer on the west side
are all remarkably effective in keeping the house cool.
Quite aside from providing all possible comfort to
combat weather conditions, the architect has met the
family requirements: a house for relaxed country
living on a 60-acre ranch; outdoor entertaining; and
a large porch for the two children's play. Easy access
from all parts of the house to the adjoining porches
was a specific requirement that was met.

JOSEPH ESHERICK, ARCHITECT

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163

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

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STEVENS & WILKINSON, ARCHITECTS

164

The program for this house — for Mr. J. R. Wilkinson,
partner in the architectural firm which designed it-
was a simple direct one: a year-round house for the
architect and his wife and two small boys. The south-
ern climate, however, was on inevitable part of the
program. To insure good cross ventilation, aluminum
louvers were installed beneath the double-thick win-
dow wall in the living room (photo at left), and tran-
soms were placed across the front entrance (photo-
graphs below). The same effect of cross current of air
is achieved in the bedrooms by sliding windows on
the south and high transoms on the north and west
sides. Overhangs of six-foot width on the south side
of the living room, and three-ond-one-half feet at the
bedrooms, protect the glass from sun in the summer
and also keep out all but heavy driving rains. Situated
in a three-acre plot in the middle of a large wooded
tract, the house is oriented with the living room and
principal bedrooms to the south-southeast with a two-
mile view of the wooded area. The extra bedroom on
the northeast corner was planned for the use of a
nurse or servant while the children are small, and to
be converted to a guest room or one of the boy's
bedrooms later on. The master bathroom was de-
signed and roughed in so that by the addition of a
partition separate bathrooms will be provided for
the two main bedrooms when children are larger.
Construction is concrete slab on ground, wood frame,
corrugated cement-asbestos exterior siding, and built-
up gravel roof. Plaster walls and acoustic fibre-board
ceilings are used throughout. Heating is a hot-water
system with radiant floor panels.

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iVEIKHER & ELTING, ARCHITECTS

Mr. and Mrs. Louis C. Upton asked Schweikher and
Elting, architects with their office in Chicago, to de-
sign for them a house located in and suited to the
Paradise Valley of Arizona. A certain part of the
plan scheme was determined by the location of exist-
ing foundations (the Uptons had a previous house on
the site, which hod burned). However, the final
arrangement — living quarters on the south and
sleeping quarters on the west turning in to a cactus
garden patio — was based primarily on the architects'
desire to provide comfortable living space in a hot,
arid climate; to take every advantage of all breezes;
and to design a cool-looking, serene, appropriate
environment. Although the materials employed are
massive piers and walls of stone and wide bands of
wood, the house has a light and oiry character. This
is partly the result of the openness of the plan; partly
due to the glass strips between masonry piers (shown
from the outside in the view of the northeast approach
side of the house; upper photograph on the facing
page); and very largely because of the way living
quarters, master bedroom and guest suite have been
separated from one another, though all under one
continuous roof. Along the north and south walls of
the living room built-in benches covered with uphol-
stered air-foam pads make comfortable places to
relax and enjoy the pool which is located between the
living room and the garden (lower photo, facing
page). The entrance loggia, the terrace between
master and guest sleeping quarters, and the cactus-
planted patio all merge together as outdoor space,
but with varying degrees of openness and protection
from winds (picture below). Above the living room is
a screened roof terrace, with the massive chimney
wall providing a wind-break that makes it possible to
cook and eat in this spot as well as on the lower level.

167

168

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Planned as a duplex or two-family house on on ordi-
nary lot, a prime requisite was orientation so that both
units would equally benefit from the prevailing south-
east breeze and receive full winter sunlight. An alumi-
num fence and high windows on the street side pro-
vide protection from the winter north winds and insure
privacy from the street. The roof slope is virtually that
of the grade which is also the natural flow of air in
summer. All possible hot-air pockets are eliminated by
natural ventilation. A sheet aluminum awning shades
the bedroom windows. Adjustable louvers on the ex-
terior of the living room window wall ore faced by
windows which lift to the ceiling by pulley-operation
(see photograph on opposite page and section be-
low). Wires in tension support the aluminum roof and
wall of the dual-purpose terrace (photo below), which
serves as an outdoor living space and as a car shelter.
Due to the slope of the site the bedrooms are on a
higher level. The main living space on the lower level
is basically a square which has been divided up into
living room, study and a kitchen which is separated
only by counters and cabinets.

J. GLASS, DESIGNER

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170

IGOR POLEVITZKY, ARCHITECT

MIAMI, FLORIDA

Almost entirely opened to the warm sun and breeze
which prevail ninety percent of the time in sub-tropical
Miami, this house designed by Igor Polevitzky is in
essence only a screened shelter with a minimum of
enclosed space for use during inclement weather.
Daring in its concept and dramatic in its appearance,
it embodies many of the most desirable elements for
a Florida house. It admirably meets Mr. Michael
Heller's requirements: a house with a view of the
Miami skyline and Biscayne Bay with as much open
space as possible and casual cooking and sleeping
areas. Within the airy screened structure, 20 by 72
feet, is an excellent plan solution. Entrance is through
an inside garden which gives access to the three levels:
the sheltered living space, the pool-terrace, and the
upper deck. On the lower level, to the left of the en-
trance, is a living room, kitchen and enclosed master
bedroom; above this area is the deck, open on both
sides to the breeze, with enclosed cabana-guest room
at the rear; the pool and cantilevered terrace are on
the intermediate level. The circular swimming pool is
lifted above ground level to insure fresh-water supply
(at sea level one hits salt water by digging a few
feet) and is drained into the shallow fish pond out-

side the house. Bedrooms on either floor give a choice
of sleeping rooms: the first floor bedroom In cooler
weather, the second floor room for warm nights. With
the breeze from the southeast and the view to the
southwest the house is opened to both exposures. En-
closed only with the plastic screen walls and ceiling
the pool and terrace invite the sun. The deck is raised
high to catch every breeze, has a ceiling of asbestos-
cement panels for shade, and roil-high canvas panels
for privacy (see photograph below). One wall of
sliding glass opens the living room to the patio gar-
den. Windows in this room and the master bedroom
on the first floor are floor-to-ceiling aluminum double-
hung sash. The entire window is fitted on the outside
of the wall, which allows the upper sash to be lowered
below the floor line and thus have an opening two-
thirds of the full height (the lower one-third of the
sash is fixed). Wide eaves, concealed within the
screened frame, give protection from rain. The ground
floor is of concrete block walls, concrete joists and
precast concrete floor slabs; second floor is of poured
concrete. Clearspon steel bar joists, supported on
wood columns, with asbestos-cement panels and
screening, form the second floor roof.

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MIAMI, FLORIDA,
continued

Above: the entrance side with swimming pool at right.

Below: view from pool of living area below, deck above.

REDDING, CONNECTICUT

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REDDING, CONNECTICUT, continued

In designing a house for the Gerald Loebs in Con-
necticut, Harwell Hamilton Harris was faced with the
problem of providing a retreat which could be used
either summer or winter (the house has proved itself
so well that it is now used for much longer periods
than had been originally intended) with the tempera-
tures inside comfortable under any circumstances. The
solution is based primarily on the use of sliding wall
panels — easily removable and stored away — which
are of three kinds. As the detail below shows, there is
one set of glass panels (for the winter, when solar radi-
ation is invited), one of waterproof, translucent plastic
(for elimination of sun's rays during the hot summer
days), and one of insect screening (to allow the most
complete through ventilation on evenings when the
wooded glen in which the house is situated becomes
pleasantly cool). This detail is not only important in
the sense of providing a comfortable environment—
the wall panels in themselves go a long way in setting
the scale and delicate proportions of the house. The
photograph at the bottom of the opposite page shows
some of the patterning that can result from the use
of the panels. Connected to an existing building (at
the right of the photograph on this page) the new
pavilion is essentially a one-room space, with an
alcove for sleeping (upper picture on opposite page)
and a kitchenette at the north end. Other measures
used successfully to keep the indoor temperature com-
parable to the outdoors on cool evenings are ventila-
tion through at the ceiling level (there ore exhausts
at each gable and at the fireplace) and a floor lifted
above the foundations sufficiently to provide under-
floor ventilation as well.

INTERLOCKING OR OTHER
WEATHERSTRIPPING MAY BE
USED AT THESE POINTS.

ALL PANELS SAME HEIGHT
a INTERCHANGEABLE
WHETHER SILL a HEAD
ARE STEPPED OR LEVEL.

HOR. SECTION AT
LAP

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HARWELL HAMILTON HARRIS, DESIGNER

175

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BENSENVILLE, ILLINOIS

1. Entrance

2. Living

3. Bedrooms

4. Dining

5. Kitchen

6. Utility

7. Garage

8. Porch

9. Drying Yard

Mr. and Mrs. John Spence turned to George Fred
Keck and his brother William when they wanted to
build a house on a rather flat, wooded site in a suburb
twenty miles from Chicago. Their primary reason was
because this firm has long been interested in and has
experimented with the most effective type of natural
control of the environment in this climate — full use
of solar radiant heat. This is a "solar house" in the
best sense. It turns all of the principal rooms to the
south and extends the roof beyond the wall line to
allow the winter sun in and keep the summer sun out
(see diagram below). It ventilates the living and bed-
room spaces by full wall-height panels of louvers on
either side of the glass walls (these louver panels can
be seen in the exterior photograph on the opposite
page — in the living room picture below they are be-
hind the curtains). Finally it coordinates these natural
heating and ventilating devices with a radiant floor
panel heating system, carefully balanced by inside-
outside controls. The program for this house was

GEORGE FRED KECK - WILLIAM KECK, ARCHITECTS

simply to provide a place for a well-rounded family
life, convenient and healthful, with full enjoyment of
the outdoor view, the surrounding oak trees, the snow-
covered ground in winter and the wild flowers which
still grow in this undeveloped area in summer. This
house which turns its face to the sun seems to answer
all those requirements. A solar house, limited in plan
by the need to face all main rooms south, is not too
easy to work out for circulation and convenient
access to all spaces. Here some intimacy has been
sacrificed around the living room fireplace in order to
get from the entry to the bedroom corridor — a solu-
tion which some would object to and others would
not mind. Relationship of the L-shaped living-dining
room to the kitchen on the one hand (and through the
kitchen to the utility room and the garage) and to
the bedroom wing on the other hand, is excellent. A
generous porch has been provided at the southwest
corner of the house, for the semi-outdoor living which
is reasonable in this climate.

JUNE 2|ST

MARCH AtUD SEPT. 21 ^t
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178

SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA

While a great deal can be done In the warmer south-
ern climates to provide coolness by naturol means —
louvers, cross ventilation through the house, and
other methods that we have seen, as in Dean Komp-
hoefner's house on pages 154 to 157 — reliance can
also be placed on mechanical devices. In the house
for Mr. and Mrs. Sylvian W. Gamm the architects
used a winter-summer air-conditioning system. How-
ever, they do not depend entirely on this to solve
climatic problems; the load on the air-conditioning
unit during the summer is reduced by air circulation
through the roof construction. (The photograph at the
top of the facing page shows the continuous line of
openings between roof beams, in the underside of
the eaves). In addition, the deep overhangs them-
selves help provide coolness. Entrance to the house

is from a street at the west (the right-hand end of
the plan below) and the plan is so devised that all
important rooms face south to the view and toward
the widest expanse of the acre-sized property. These
rooms gain sunlight and, fortunately, the prevailing
breeze as well by being oriented southward. The
carport is to the north, and all of the "utility" rooms
— baths, kitchen, and the centrally located air-
conditioning equipment room — are on the north
side. The simple rectangle, with the protruding car-
port sheltered under an extension of the main roof,
was inexpensive to build and has proved efficient to
operate. Lower picture on opposite page is of the
living room looking toward the game room, which
can double as a guest room. Below, the entrance at
the corner of the house, carport to the left.

SAMUEL G. & WILLIAM B. WIENER, ARCHITECTS

bHaM>aiiMaSti<a£L .

179

EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA

Some measure of acoustic control in a house is always
h'chly desirable: when construction materials with
reverberant surfaces are used, such as brick, concrete
and glass, solving the acoustical problem is essential.
Architect Paul Beidler, who gave careful study to the
use of all materials in this house for Joseph Rose,
solved the problem by using a sprayed acoustical
insulation on the ceilings for the first time in an indi-
vidual house. He reports that it has perfect acoustic
qualities and a soft pleasing neutral finish. It is also
economical since it takes the place of three materials
— insulation, plaster, and paint — normally used in a
conventional ceiling. Grey construction bricks laid in
parallel courses six inches opart form the exterior
and interior walls. The cavity between is insulated
with a fill of sawdust. Radiant heating pipes are im-

bedded in the concrete floor slab, which was left
natural in color and thoroughly sanded and waxed
to give a handsome polished surface. The combina-
tion of these various materials (as shown in the living
room on opposite page) successfully meets one of the
owner's requirements, that of easy maintenance. The
other requirements — plenty of sunshine and adjoin-
ing indoor-outdoor areas, hove also been skillfully
solved by the architect. For sunshine, every room
faces south with large expanses of glass (see photo-
graph below); for relationship of indoors to outdoors,
all rooms with the exception of one bedroom open
directly to the terrace on the south. Wide projecting
eaves give protection during the summer to both
glass areas and terrace. Floor-level transom windows

are below the fixed glass walls for ventilation

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ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS

The owners of this house designed by Bernard Kessler
are in fheir middle years, enjoy doing their own work
(both husband and wife are good cooks) and like to
putter in their garden. The house is designed, there-
fore, to make life easy and pleasant, with such
mechanical problems as heating and lighting as un-
obtrusive and OS little bother as modern technics
would allow. The heating system uses radiant ceiling
panels. Lighting is largely through recessed fixtures;
in the living room on two sides there is a protruding
lighting trough (photograph at the right) which con-
ceals cold cathode tubes controlled by a rheostat.
In plan, the house uses a sloping site which falls
away to the west, allowing the bedrooms to be raised
above grade, which the owners wanted. The living
room faces a terrace (lower picture on opposite page)
which sits somewhat above the slope of the grade (at
the left of the upper picture on the facing page) but
from which one can wander down to the garden.
The trellis arrangement at this terrace may someday
be screened. The arrangement of kitchen and dining
room is perhaps unusual, but works well for the
desires of the owners. The lower photo on this page
shows the screen wall panel which is the only separa-
tion between cooking and eating spaces.

CONSTRUCTION AND MATERIALS

The ways we have to build are strong influences on the sort of buildings that we produce. The
Greeks and the Romans became masters at the art of placing polished stone on polished stone
to form walls and columns and even huge arches. The architecture they produced, including
the delicately sculptured capitals of their columns and the methodically modulated entablatures
which were their girders, was a direct result of that method of building. During the Middle
Ages designers and builders found ways to use masonry much more delicately, in thin ribs
and vault forms sensitively buttressed with "flying" arches. They produced skeleton structures,
both in masonry and wood, which left great open wall areas to be filled in with glass or
curtains of brick or stucco. It seemed as though no new building forms were possible, because
presumably every method of construction had been explored, until the industrial revolution
ofFered radical, completely new possibilities.

Three things have changed: the wider choice of materials, the method of fabrication, and the
method of construction. Materials will be discussed later: here it is enough to say that the manu-
factured metals and their many alloys, greater knowledge of the plastic possibilities in
reinforced concrete, the development of the glass industry to a point where large, clear
sheets were commercially available, and the fusion and processing of many materials into
panels, such as cement-asbestos combinations and wood fiber products, have so far been ihe
important developments in a structural sense.

The manner in which materials are processed before delivery to the site— fob r/cof ion methods—
has had perhaps the strongest efFect up to this point on the way our buildings look, and the
way they function for us. Let's take a very obvious example. If a wood beam is going to be
sized and finished with an adze just before it is fitted into place in a house, one sort of structure
will result. If that beam comes from the mill cut to specific dimensions, roughly dressed, per-
haps even notched and fitted for joining with adjacent members, it is inevitable that another
sort of building will come forth. To be more drastically comparative: the architecture of four-
foot wide wall panels finished on both sides, with insulation built in at the factory, must be
very different from the architecture of wood studs nailed to a sill, supporting a girt, covered
inside with lath and plaster, having insulation tucked between them, faced on the outside with
sheathing, paper, and siding. It is possible, of course, to pretend that what is so isn't so, to
warp modern materials into imitations of older ones, to cover the facades of houses with false
facings so that the nature of the structure is concealed. There is nothing immoral in this; it is
just contrary to the principles that have produced all really fine architecture— the full exploita-
tion, estheticaily as well as functionally of the things available to build with.

It is in the utilization of consfrucfion methods that we have been most laggard in our time.
Manufacturers of building materials have, generally speaking, been as advanced as the
builders in the construction industry have allowed them to be. Architects and engineers have
made numerous studies of the way in which construction methods could be improved and have
designed many individual houses to demonstrate their theories. But unless they have suitable
materials available and the builder at hand who will put them into effect, these remain
individual and isolated efforts. The builders blames it on the mortgage lenders, the bankers on
public acceptance, while the client points to the local building code which restricts him.

184

Some advances have been made in breaking into this vicious circle; builders are more interested
in time- and labor-saving methods ihan they v/ere a few years ago; bank ofFicials have relaxed
their frowns somewhat; strong moves are underway in various parts of the country to modernize
building codes. But the big break won't be until the public understands and demands the
benefits that could come from more up-to-date methods of building. For the sake of simplifica-
tion, let us consider just two very important aspects of the problem: the elimination of bearing
walls, and methods of jointing.

It is no longer necessary or desirable to support a roof on a continuous wall, either of wood or
of masonry. Basically a house, like any other enclosure for whatever purpose, has to have a
top and sides, for protection against changes in the weather and against prying eyes. A
dome form would make roof and walls merge and become one, but our technology so far has
not found a way to produce such a shape as economically as the simpler concept of a roof,
somehow held up, with side walls. The roof can't be hung (this too has been tried, with the
roof hung from a central mast, but again the technical and economic problems are too great)
so it has to be supported from below. The walls, however, can be mere curtains of glass or
any other non-supporting material, so long as they keep out the rain and cold and allow
privacy. So it seems to make sense to provide as few and as thin supports for the roof as we
can. On the pages that follow, the photograph of a house of Kenneth Kassler's under construc-
tion (page 206) shows well how simple this skeleton frame can be. Eames' house, on the next
three pages, and Soriano's forward-looking house on pages 196 to 198 show the final results
of two steel-skeleton schemes, where no outside walls carry any load; the Drake house and
the Stone house (pages 189 to 193) have wood post systems which accomplish the same struc-
tural aim— regularly spaced columns carrying the room framing and freeing the wall between
them. This is, of course, a well-known principle in tall building construction— the steel-frame sky-
scraper is one of the contributions we have made to the history of building— but it takes a long,
long while for it to be generally applied to the more simple problem of residential building.

Once this principle is accepted, many economies in construction methods will become possible.
To name just one, the Southwest Research Institute in Texas has developed what is known as
the Youtz-Slick system of pouring a concrete roof (or upper floor) on the ground, with the
building's columns sticking up through it, and then raising it by means of hydraulic jacks after
it has set— letting it slide right up the columns until it is at the proper height. A number of
architects and builders are using the system and finding many economies in it.

Another important aspect of construction is the matter of joining— one might say jointing— the
larger and larger elements that go into our buildings. The carpenter with his mouth full of nails
put together many wonderful buildings, but today a few nuts and bolts, or a few screws down
the length of a wall panel (if the detail is right) can do the same thing much more simply and
in a manner more appropriate to the materials used. An architect named Konrad Wachsmann,
with Walter Gropius, has devised and is marketing a prefabricated house in which the whole
secret is the joint between panels. A more simple illustration is the X-shaped wood post used
in the Johnson & Whitcomb house illustrated on page 207. Wachsmann says "the joint relation-
ship between the mass-produced elements . . . becomes the all-important keypoint." Johnson &
Whitcomb say, "the cross form to accommodate interior and exterior panels eliminated the
need for any complicated machinery of production." Factory or site produced, easily joined
elements will make erection simpler.

No person— architect, builder, manufacturer or client, is going to change overnight our tradi-
tional attitudes toward building construction in the residential field. But a greater knowledge
of the possibilities and a closer study of what has already been done will help to bring nearer
the day when the techniques of our time produce better houses.

185

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA

Many people are now enjoying the furniture designed
by Charles Eames. His approach has been to produce
contemporary objects, light, comfortable, pleasing to
look at, that would take advantage of modern indus-
trial methods of manufocture. When it come to design-
ing a house and studio for himself, as part of the
Case Study program of the magazine Arts and Archi-
tecture, Eames felt that these same criteria should
apply. His object was to enclose as much space as
possible (the living room is 18 feet high) as inexpen-
sively as possible by a maximum use of industrialized
elements. That the result is as airy and delicate a
structure as it is, can be attributed to his choice of
the standard members to be used. For instance, the
frame of the house is steel, of standard shapes, but
Eames chose light-weight open-web joists, covered
them with steel factory decking, and left them exposed
to form the tracery pattern that the photograph at

the right shows. All sash is of standard steel sizes,
but it is the selection of the "architectural projected"
type which makes them relate so well to the fixed
glazed sections and the contrasting stucco panels.
There is much to be learned about residential con-
struction from this house: the fact that the unusually
high space (plus a 200-foot long retaining wall) was
built for a square foot cost comparable to conven-
tional construction; the fact that the frame of the
house was erected by five men in sixteen hours; the
fact that the result is light and airy and gracious;
these things point to possibilities ahead. The fact that
the integration of lighting and mechanical equip-
ment with the steel frame was difficult; and above all
the fact that the design required an unusual amount
of study and superintendence: these things point to
some of the difficulties there will be in changing
traditional methods in the construction Industry.

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CALIFORNIA,

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Studio and dark room are in a separate building. The
main structure contains the huge living room at one
end, the kitchen and dining room at the other. Above
the kitchen wing are two bedrooms, which look down

on the living room (photograph above) but can be
closed off by means of sliding glass panels. Under the
end of this bedroom "gallery" is the sitting area
shown below, made more intimate by its lower ceiling.

188

J^^^rwi/L. JLunA-

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

To solve an unusually difficult site problem Gordon
Drake, the designer of this house, made a virtue of
a necessity and developed a simple but Ingenious
construction system. With a lot only thirty-five feet
wide — situated in a wooded canyon cornered by a
rocky ledge clifF on the north side and approached
by a precipitous road — Mr. Drake anchored the
house to the hill on the south side and lifted the main
living areas to an upper level to raise them above
the treetops for a vista and sunlight. The lower level
(shown on the plan opposite and photograph below)
is opened up on three sides by the use of built-up
wood posts, six feet on centers, which act as supports
for and continue up through the upper level. A car
shelter, laundry, service yard, and covered garden
are neatly fitted into the lower level. Beyond the
covered garden is an outdoor terrace sitting room,
tucked into the curve of the steep hill. A large masonry
pier screens the service yard from the garden-terrace.
The upper floor (shown on the following pages) is
reached by a flight of stairs leading up from the lower
garden room, or by means of a ramp off the hill.

GORDON DRAKE, DESIGNER

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, continued

With a buildable area of only 30 by 35 feet, designer
Drake skillfully incorporates all the necessary ele-
ments of comfortable living quarters in the upper
level of this house for Mr. and Mrs. George Spillman.
The entire east wall of the living room is glazed and
opens to a balcony (see photograph below) increas-
ing the scale of the room. Few partitions — a fireplace
wall separating kitchen from living room, and a par-
tition which houses a bookcase and desk on the living
side and headboard on the bedroom side — also
seem to add to the actual dimensions. On one side
of the bedroom is a dressing room and bath, and on
the east side a small secluded garden terraced into
the hillside. The isometric drawing at the bottom of
the opposite page illustrates the simple structural
system, based on four by four wood posts, two stories
high, reinforced at the lower floor with additional
two by fours on each side. A plywood skin acts as
structural stiffener. Wood framing is independent of
the chimney to comply with earthquake design require-
ments. The esthetic concept (as well as the practical
one) of the construction system, combined with the
brilliant solution of the design, gives the impression
that this tree-top house literally grows from its site.

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191

EDWARD D. STONE, ARCHITECT

KARL J. HOLZINGER and ROY S. JOHNSON, ASSOCIATES

WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK

Sometimes a construction system is adopted because
of site conditions, as in the preceding house; some-
times because it is particularly suited to the program
and the qualify of the design desired, as in this house
designed by Edward D. Stone and his associates for
Mr. and Mrs. William Rayburn and their four young
children. The Rayburns wanted to use materials that
would be easily maintained, and they wanted a house
which would have a rural, unsophisticated character,
consistent with their servontless method of living. The
property, on a pleasantly sloping wooded site, also
seemed to call for this natural, almost rugged ap-
proach to the design. The structural solution is the
most unaffected one that could be imagined, going
back in many respects to the methods of building of
the early American carpenters. Wood posts, which
also act as window mullions, are spaced four feet on
centers. Framing into these posts at the eaves line
are doubled beams, which span across the entire
width of the house. The elements of this system are
admirably shown, in the natural and frank way they
have been used, by the two photographs of the living
room on the opposite page. Throughout the house, in
bedrooms and children's playroom as well as the
large living and dining areas, the natural wood sur-
faces have been left exposed.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

The house on the preceding pages used a four-foot
module for a rugged post and beam system. This
house, designed by Rodney A. Walker for himself
and his family, is based on a fhree-foot module, also
in wood, also making use of the posts as mullions,
and the difference in scale and design result is at
once apparent. One reason for the greater smooth-
ness here is the plywood sheathing inside and out
on walls and ceilings, and a system of diagonal truss
bracing in each three-foot bay which gives the stiff-
ness that heavier members and a plonk, pitched roof
gave to the Rayburn house. Situated on a rather small
hillside lot sloping south to the major view of ocean
and city, the house has been planned to take full
advantage of the property. A semi-enclosed roof
deck over the bedroom wing (plan and photograph
at top of opposite page) was developed for a part
of the family's outdoor living, to free more of the
ground area for terrace and lawn. On the lower floor
(plan below) one enters a loggia which leads directly
to living room, service wing, bedrooms, or up a very
open stair to the roof deck. Study, living room, dining
room, and dining terrace hove been so arranged that
they can be closed off from one another by sliding
and folding partitions, or thrown together into one
large space, as the photograph at the bottom of the
opposite page shows. The kitchen (see photo at right)
has been carefully planned for convenient work and
service without regular servants.

RODNEY A. WALKER, DESIGNER

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194

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Having looked at three houses based on wood struc-
tural systems, we return again to the use of steel
framing, but with a very different application from
that in the Eames house which opened this section of
the book. In designing the 1950 Case Study house for
the magazine Aiis and Architecture, Raphael Soriano
was determined to do the most rational and simple
thing that modern technology allowed in enclosing
flexible and inexpensive space. The house is a rec-
tangle forty feet by seventy feet. Steel pipe columns
3'/2 inches in diameter support the roof, and they are
spaced regularly, ten feet on centers in the long
direction, making the seven bays that show in the
photograph below; and twenty feet in the short dimen-
sion of the house. On this pipe-column grid six-inch
deep steel beams span the twenty-foot dimension,
and corrugated steel roof decking stretches across
the ten-foot space between them. There are no sup-
porting walls or partitions; this steel frame is all that
there is to the structure as such. Exterior facin9 is

almost entirely glass, with curtains used to provide
privacy where and when it is needed. Interior divi-
sions ore, with few exceptions, cabinets and cupboards
or folding partitions. Within this rectangle Soriano
has arranged the space so that there ore many varia-
tions and differences in scale and in texture. One
corner of the rectangle is used as carport (I in the
plan below) and from it one approaches the entry
(A) and steps into the living room (E). Three aspects
of this room are shown on the opposite page: a view
from the outside, above; looking into the room from
the entry, below, left; and looking back from the
room into the dining room, below, right. Another
corner of the rectangle is used as a dining patio (K)
entered either from the living room or the dining
room (D) and the kitchen which wraps around it (B
and C). Bedrooms (F and H) occupy their own corner.
Colors and textures of furniture and furnishings have
been carefully chosen to suit the character of each
room, makin9 a simple structure warm and colorful.

RAPHAEL SORIANO, ARCHITECT

196

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, continued

Above, a view info the smaller bedroom. The
sliding glass w^alls are placed back of the
outer line of the concrete-floored, steel-roofed
structural grid, v/ith the pipe columns exposed.

Right, a view of the dining patio, looking
ahead info the end of the living room, at the
left into the dining room. Roof is open to the
sky in this orea by omitting decking.

Right, the entry, looking from the carport
through the entrance hall into the living room.

198

Use of Materials

"I like a whitewashed brick house," Mrs. Farragut says, "It has such a nice warm and cozy
feeling." And Mrs. Honeywell rejoins, "Personally I want to have a white clapboard New
England house— low, with some symphoricarpos caprifoliaceae growing up around the front
door." The gadabout in the group, Mrs. Jeremy, asks, "Have you seen the new house the
Remingtons have built out in Woods Hole? It has one wall all of glass and when I heard about
it I thought it was going to be all cold and hard and, you know, modern, but I was there the
other day and really after you've been in it a while it isn't bad at all. It gives you a sort of
relaxed feeling— it's so open and all— so, oh, uncluttered."

Associations with certain materials— definite nostalgias, and emotional reactions which make
one material say "warm" to you and another say "cold"— are an important and perfectly
justifiable reason for selecting them when you are going through the process of building a
house. Acceptance of "new" materials (even old materials with which we are not so familiar)
requires a period for acquaintanceship to develop and new associations to be formed. Buck-
minster Fuller's all-aluminum house was such a radical departure from all familiar houses that
very few potential customers took to it; on the other hand, the use of natural-finished woods,
such as cypress and redwood, as exterior surfacing instead of the once-irreplaceable white
shingle or clapboard is now commonly accepted.

Materials do force themselves on us for esthetic, personal and emotional reasons because of
their sensory characteristics— texture, feel, color, even odor. But we would be very foolish
indeed to let these arbitrary reasons be the only ones for selecting materials of construction.
Materials also have physical characteristics. They do things (or they refuse to do things). Some
of them are stronger than others. Some ore softer, more resilient. Some reflect heat and some
absorb it; some bounce sound waves away and others cushion them. And then there is the
eternal question of maintenance; how will a given material stand up over a period of time?
Some of them rot, some rust, some crumble. They have their uses, but they must be protected
against their own weaknesses.

There used to be another very important reason for the selection of materials, and it still has
some validity; that is the local availability and the indigenous character of the substance.
Transportalion ease has made it almost as reasonable to use redwood in the northeast as in
the west; pretty much the same sort of brick is available anywhere in the country; and the
manufactured materials are not restricted to any one spot. It is still true that many of the
stones and some of the woods look best in their native habitat, among the fields and the trees
that produced them, and a number of houses in this book illustrate the fact (Kahn's use of
Pennsylvania fieldstone, for instance, on pages 232-234).

What is the modern use of materials? It is not, we think, another arbitrary urge to use something
just because it is new. It is rather, as it has been through all of history, an understanding of
what materials are available, what they will do for you in a practical sense and in on esthetic
sense, and a selection for those reasons. The houses that follow show what can be done with
some newer materials like aluminum, cement-asbestos board and light-weight concrete blocks,
and they also show more recently developed uses, through a greater understanding of their
possibilities and their limitations, of some of the older, more familiar materials such as brick
and stone and wood.

199

.^^tdaaam^..

MAYNARD LYNDON, ARCHITECT

MALIBU, CALIFORNIA

Although there is a great variety of materials used
in this house, designed by architect Moynard Lyndon
for his own family, they oil hove practical and struc-
tural as well as esthetic reasons which are completely
valid. What is more, they blend together to create
on unusual and pleasantly serene house. The site is
on Point Dume, a peninsular projection of moor coun-
try at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains. A
major requirement was for maximum view of the ocean
from all areas except the service room. The view is
southeast with thirty miles of unbroken shore line on
half the 180 degree horizon. The rectangular plan is
bridged by a thin concrete slob which is made up of
the concrete roof and the two end walls. Longitudinal
earthquake stresses are taken by the kitchen and
service room wall; other interior supports are pipe col-
umns. The two long walls are almost entirely of glass

— using sliding aluminum doors, windows and screens

— with heat-resisting glass on the ocean side to cut
glare. Throughout the house emphasis has been on
fireproof materials. All ceilings and some walls are
of perforated tronsite with acoustic backing. Floors
are of waxed chalk-white concrete. Heating is by
floor radiant panels; electric cable is embedded in
two-inch concrete topping, thermally insulated from
the structural slab; individual room control is possible
with thermostats and relays. The many materials used
in this house, tome of them unusual in residential
design, help produce the esthetic result a-, well as
serve flrepoof and earthquake-proof requirements.

Above and below, walls of heat-resistant glass roll
open to join living room with terrace, ocean view.

At right, sliding glass walls in bedroom wing are
translucent to provide privacy on the entrance side.

MALIBU, CALIFORNIA, confinued

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

BLAINE DRAKE, ARCHITECT

In a region where adobe once was the traditional
building material architect Blaine Drake has success-
fully used pumice-cement block walls which are left
with their natural finish. This more recent building
material has as good insulating qualities against the
excessive heat of Arizona as had the older and
cruder adobe. Designed on a minimum budget
($4,700) this small winter home for Mrs. Morjorie
Kumler is situated in a sparsely settled desert eight
miles from Phoenix. Because of its relative isolation,
views are undisturbed in all directions and the natural
desert growth has been left intact. Although Mrs.
Kumler, whose family is grown, lives alone she fre-
quently has overnight guests. For this reason studio
beds were planned in the main room, to supplement
the small "bunk" room. The large studio room (shown
in the photograph below) also serves the client's
literary and writing interests. Particular attention has
been paid to climatic requirements. On top of the
wood roof framing a two-inch thick wood fibre panel
acts as finished ceiling and roof deck, and at the same
time provides insulation against the hot Arizona sun.
An evaporative cooler helps to combat mid-day heat.
The fireplace gives warmth on chilly evenings.

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO

In the house which he designed for the Irving How-
berts, Jon Ruhtenberg made good use of a material
which is locally manufoctured in the area where he
practices — pumice-concrete blocks. These building
blocks are light, agreeable in texture, and easily
erected. Their disadvantage is a certain porosity (in
Arizona, as in the preceding house, where the climate
is dry there is no problem), and to overcome this
Ruhtenberg used stucco over them on a large part of
the exterior of the house. Inside, the blocks are left
exposed and painted, so that their scale and texture
form a natural finish which is pleasing as well as
inexpensive. The frame of this three-bedroom house
is of steel, and the roof slab is concrete. The plan is
a simple one, facing south toward a private view,
west to Pikes Peak. The family is small, with plans to
expand, and the house is designed for easy house-
keeping and unobtrusive supervision of the children
now, as well as ultimate expansion in the future.

dining

kitchen c

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JAN RUHTENBERG, DESIGNER

DENVER, COLORADO

In a climate which has severe winters, with low tem-
peratures, a masonry cavity wall provides high insu-
lation value with no expense beyond the cost of the
structural material itself. In this Denver house,
designed for a woman librarian by Victor Hornbein,
the bearing walls are of cavity-brick construction,
the wythes used as finished surfaces both inside and
out. The plan is a compact one-story design in a
simple rectangle, containing a generous sized living-
dining room, one bedroom and bath, and a combina-
tion kitchen-utility room. Situated on an interior lot,
75 X 142 feet, the house is oriented to the southwest
for sunlight and a view of the Rocky Mountains. To
take advantage of the somewhat abrupt bank at the
front of the site, the garage and storage space are
at a lower level. Floors are concrete slab on fill with
asphalt tile surfacing, except in the kitchen and bath
where linoleum was used. The roof is surfaced with
pitch and gravel. Partitions ore finished with fir ply-
wood. Hot water radiont panels supply heat.

VICTOR HORNBEIN, ARCHITECT

Prefabrication

The idea of constructing a house— or large pieces of a house— in a central point from which
it could be shipped to the site has been an appealing one to many generations of home
builders. When you are trying to build a place to live in with as little waste of the family
bank balance as possible, it is annoying and frustrating to see all the different small bits,
and all the many workmen who have to handle and put together those bits, that begin to
gather on your property. We have been through many phases of thinking about prefabrication

of houses since the English in 1624 brought over on a boat a
load of panels which they built into a house on Cape Anne.
Any housing "emergency" always causes someone to seek
a solution in mass production methods. For instance, the Cali-
fornia gold rush of 1848 gave some eastern entrepeneurs the
opportunity of building parts of houses in New York and
shipping them to the west coast. Prefabrication's big headache
—distribution— immediately showed its villainous role in the
scheme of things: houses which had cost $400 in the east
had jumped to an inflationary figure of $5,000 by the time
they reached the western customers. The depression, the war
periods, and the crises after the wars were other emergency
reasons for attempts to industrialize the building of houses and reduce the costly on-site,
piece-by-piece construction operation. Still, with all this impetus, with lots of private and
government money spent on experiments, the prefabricated house business has not yet
reached industry status, and is contributing very little to the total number of places to live.

It is not the function of this book to study the reasons for this slow progress in what seems
to almost everyone a reasonable direction. The causes for failure are many, and they are
well documented in a growing literature on the subject. What is more important to us at
the moment is what has been gained, rather than what has been lost, as a result of the
experiments to date. In the first place, a great deal has been learned by conventional
builders and translated to their own ways of operating. After all, prefabrication is simply
the pre-manufacture of parts of a building as large as it is practicable to build them. If you
are going to build just one house, it would be nice to be able to buy big wall panels instead
of a lot of studs and sheathing (or bricks and mortar) and in some parts of the country, if
you are near a prefabrication plant, you can. But if you are going to build many houses at
the same time, you can design your own parts for prefabrication on the site and by standard-
ization and simplified erection methods make each operation less costly. It is to the credit
of some architects and designers that they have tackled this problem (usually, as in the case
of the Johnson & Whitcomb house on the facing page, they have been costly experiments)
and the builders have learned much as a result. Kenneth Kassler, New Jersey architect, has
been experimenting with the problem, and two of his skeleton-frame paneled houses are
shown under construction here. In the upper photograph, note the lock of bearing walls
(partitions will be plywood storage units) and in the lower picture, see how simply large wall
panels are fitted, in one operation, into the modular framework. There can be little doubt
that in time the logic of such a system will result in demands for the benefits of its economies.

206

DEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

Many architects hove been intrigued by the possi-
bilities of simplified construction systems and prefab-
ricated wall panels; few have arrived at as ingenious
and logical a solution as Johnson and Whitcomb in
this "prototype" house designed as an experiment,
built and sold to a young married couple, and ulti-
mately enlarged for them beyond the plan shown.
The isometric view of the structural frame at the right
and the photo below indicate the basis of the con-
struction system — built-up posts four feet on centers
form a cross, into which both exterior and interior
panels (with insulation between) fit and can be
fastened with no complicated jointing, no need for
too-accurate tolerances. Where openings in the wall
occur, window panels are fitted in just as simply,
with no frames, no small fitted pieces. Roof and floor
ore of two-inch tongue and groove planking, span-
ning the four feet between joists without need for
double flooring. The plan is most simple, to fit this
modular, rectangular grid. Experimental houses of
this sort, sometimes expensive in themselves to build,
have taught builders much about the advantages
and ultimate economies of larger prefabricated parts
and simpler detailing.

JOHNSON & WHITCOMB, ARCHITECTS

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APPEARANCE

"So all right," said Mrs. Farragut, "When I build my whitewashed brick house I'll make It
a cavity wall and insist that both— what's the word?— wythes— be left exposed as self-finishing
materials. I've learned my lesson about that. But I still don't like the /coles of these new
houses. No one can make me like their oppsoronce." Mrs. Honeywell agreed with her:
"I still like my white clapboard New England house— it just appeals to me." But Mrs. Jeremy
again disagreed. "You know it's a funny thing," she said. "The more I see of those new houses
out at Woods Hole, the more I like them. You get used to them, and after a while the houses
we live in begin to look awfully stuffy and old-fashioned."

Again this matter of nostalgia and association and personal taste. Unfortunately, fads and
fashions have something to do with it, too. Who is to say that one house is more beautiful
than another? What criteria can one set up, in order to judge what beauty in architecture
is, and to disassociate it from passing fancies? Something begins to look old-fashioned, but
that is usually the result of changing tastes. Let us jump from housing to clothes for a moment,
to draw an analogy: is a short dress more or less beautiful than a long one? At one time one
or the other seems more attractive to you, but that is usually because styles have changed
and one is an accustomed sight, the other a strange sight— for the moment. This doesn't
happen in the case of truly good architecture. While popular fancy may suggest that we
live in imitation Georgian manor houses one decade and imitation half-timbered Tudor
cottages another, the real Georgian house and the real Tudor house remain beautiful objects
that tell us of their time because they were right for their time. Why is this? Are there standards
to go by and rules to judge by, in evaluating the beauty of the architecture of our own or
any other time? We think there are some elementary ones, that have almost been lost sight
of in the battle of "styles."

First, beaufy is inherenf in a strucfure. The beauty of a structure is not an applied thing, but
Is the result of the whole design— its shape and form, the way it uses its site and adapts itself
to its surroundings, the materials it is made of, the voids and solids and patterns, the light
and shade it produces of itself. If there is any surface decoration applied (as in the carving
of the Greek column capitals) or color or texture added (as in the patterning of brickwork)
these things can only accentuate— they can point up and sharpen the beauty that is already
there, or they con attempt to conceal a basic awkwardness.

A second general rule is that beauty derives from fhe fitness of a building. Louis Sullivan
perhaps over-simplified this fact when he said that form follows function. It isn't that a building
which works well for its occupants is automatically beautiful (there are plenty of efficiency
experts, but very few really fine architects) but rather that any object, including a building,
has to look like whqt it is in order to give us a real esthetic thrill. A number of recent psycho-
logical experiments have pointed this fact up very sharply. It is easier to understand the
principle with smaller objects: a hammer, for instance, that looks as though it would swing
well in the grip and would give a true wham to the nail head looks very beautiful to the
carpenter— really esthetically exciting. A tool designed in a meaningless curve, covered with
useless though perhaps beautiful ornament, would leave him cold. In buildings, this matter
once again gets confused with association; familiarity with an unfit form may lead us to the

208

false conclusion that it is a proper form. Undeniably, an imitation Cape Cod cottage symbolizes
"home" to many of us, despite its questionable fitness as a form for a 20th century domicile.
Mrs. Jeremy was right; we shall have to see and become familiar with many more new houses
than most of us so far have, before we regain the innate sense of beaufy in fitness.

Finally, one other factor in judging the beauty of a house is particularly applicable in our
time. Beauty can come from the use of space, as well as the use of solid substances. Although
space has always been the important thing that on architect plays with, the modern under-
standing of space relationship is very different from the classical, the medieval, or the
Renaissance conceptions. The space-time concept, a philosophical and mathematical discovery
of recent times, can be translated very truly into architecture. Space can move and flow;
the relationship of one space to another can be a visually and esthetically exciting thing;
space can hove scale of its own, and an emotional quality. In very different ways people like
Wright and Neutra (see Neutro's house on pages 80 to 84) are masters at this art of making
space work for them to produce a large part of the beauty of their buildings.

We have not said anything about the academic criteria for beauty in composition— harmony,
rhythm, scale, and all the rest. There is nothing fixed or eternal about any such standards;
as soon as someone sets up a system of dynamic symmetry or modular scale relationships,
someone else breaks all the rules and produce a new work of beauty, in architecture just as
in music or painting or the dance. There is beauty in rhythmic repetition, and there is beauty
in surprises and contrasts; a modulated softness can be very appealing, and sometimes a sharp
harshness can thrill. The increasingly attractive appearance of our residential architecture
in the United States cannot be explained or judged on the basis of these maxims. The things
to watch for now, and the things that we will become increasingly attracted by are the
inherent beauty that we have mentioned, coming from the fitness of the building and the
way it moulds and uses space; certain honestly indigenous characteristics that we continue
to recognize as true; some personal methods of handling materials and architectural forms
that have attracted enough of the younger architects so that they are becoming recognizable
as part of our architectural vocabulary.

The pages that follow in this book show houses which were selected for this section not
because they ore the most beautiful ones in the book; rather because they illustrate trends
and tendencies which have become very important in the appearance of the new house.
There are certain regional influences, for example. It is possible to say, as a very good
architect recently did say, "If I wont to build in Massachusetts exactly the same sort of
house I would like to build in California, there is no reason I shouldn't do it; with modern
heating methods I can justify large glass areas; I can get redwood just as cheaply as any
other good siding, and I can melt the snow on a flat roof." And yet there are also valid
reasons for regional differences. The Oregon barn has admittedly influenced Belluschi's work
(pages 149 and 210). The stony Pennsylvania countryside accounts for some of the flavor of
Kahn's Weiss house (pages 232 to 234). The brick and wood, wide-eaved midwest house that
grew up with no conscious architectural direction in the last century undoubtedly had some
effect on the Schweikher & Elting approach to the Burhans house (pages 229 to 231).

Further than this, the houses that follow also show the sometimes conflicting, sometimes merging
results of the two strong personal attitudes toward architecture in recent years: the strict,
uncompromising, almost sparse translation of a program into a building (gaining distinction
and beauty through bold devices, as the cantilevers in Breuer's house on pages 218 to 220)
and the more organic, sometimes romantic designs of those who have been influenced by
Frank Lloyd Wright. There ore many personal translations ihot are neither one nor the
other of these two extremes, and out of it all begins to emerge an architecture of houses of
our own, with on esthetic appeal of its own, with a natural warmth and humanity of its own.

209

PORTLAND, OREGON

}

Probably nowhere in the United States has a more
marked expression of a natural indigenous "style"
been developed than in the Pacific Northwest. In a
region bountifully endowed with great timber lands,
it is Inevitable that the traditional building material
should be wood. Coupled with another long-estab-
lished regional characteristic— the rambling single-
story ranch-house type— this has developed an archi-
tectural idiom which is singularly appropriate to the
environment. Pietro Belluschi has been responsible
for some of the most outstanding interpretations of
this native expression, having fused it with the vitality
of design freed for a contemporary way of living.
The house which he designed for Dr. and Mrs. Merle
Moore in Portland is an admirable example of this
personal yet indigenous quality. In the plan the in-
dividual areas— living, sleeping, and service— are dis-
tinctly divided, with the house being built around a
courtyard. All main rooms face away from the en-
trance side, with only the kitchen looking out toward
the car shelter which serves as the means of approach.
From this cor shelter (see photographs above and
opposite) one has access to the main entrance by
means of a brick-paved path sheltered with a wide
overhang and to the service entrance on the opposite
side of the courtyard.

210

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SECOND PLOOR

PIETRO BELLUSCHI, ARCHITECT

211

PORTLAND, OREGON, continued

Vertical boards and battens of the exterior walls
and the pitched roof with wide overhangs (as seen
in the photograph at the right) ore typical of the
residential structures of the region. The large living
room window shown in this picture looks out across
the hilly site, on which the house is located, toward
a view of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helena and the Cascade
Range. Window walls of double-thick insulating glass
ore supplemented by a system of louvers (as shown
on the plan on the preceding page) for ventilation.
Floors are radiant heated. In the living-dining room
(see photograph above), they are covered with cork
tile. Interior walls and ceiling are also of wood.

212

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE

Many of those who advocate a lingering bow to tra-
dition, in various parts of the country, ore thinking
in terms of superficial historic mannerisms which no
longer apply to today's design problems. The early
houses on the eastern seaboard, for instance, had
small windows (for protection, and because gloss was
not available); certainly this would not be a "tradi-
tion" to continue to emulate. Much more reasonable
is the recognition of certain matters of scale; of roof
slope which, because of the climate, is as desirable
today as it ever was; of materials which blend with
the landscape; of a plan which answers Indigenous
needs rather than imposing a rigid pattern. This ap-
proach to architecture — the calm, natural sort of
design which seems to Fit where it is — is exemplified
in the work of the Homseys, husband-and-wife team,
in Delaware. The house for the Jaryl D. Siners, on
this and the following two pages, is an illustration
of this non-traditional and yet non-blatant design atti-
tude: a house on rolling form land that obviously
belongs on rolling farm land In this region.

I-

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, confinued

The plan of the Siner house is as informal and
engaging as its appearance. A covered way (photo-
graph on preceding page) leads from the garage to
the front door, which takes one into a connecting
linlc (comparable to the more traditional "breeze-
way" — here gloss enclosed) between the bedroom
wing and the living-dining space. The photograph
below shows the other side of this "lanai," and at
the bottom of the next page Is a view showing the
steps from it to the bedroom corridor. Notice the
folding doors between the bookshelves which conceal
a small piano. There is much built-in storage space
in the house; the upper picture on the next page
shows how panels at the end of the dining room open
to disclose drawer and shelf space for many special
items. The house is of conventional wood stud con-
struction, with interior finishes either plaster or birch
plywood and exterior siding of redwood (which now
seems to hove become on "indigenous" material to
all parts of the country!). Floors, over the concrete
slob which holds the radiant heat pipes, ore either
flagstone (as in the entrance court) or asphalt tile.

^GUeST^C] B DAUOHTtR

VICTORINE and SAMUEL HOMSEY, ARCHITECTS

215

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

The equitable climate of Southern California and the
natural beauty of the rugged landscape, plus the lush
growth of the tropical vegetation which has been
brought into the area, have had a significant effect
on the design of houses in this region. Added to these
factors have been strong influences from several de-
signers who, around the turn of the century, developed
a local "style" highly original, adapted to climatic
requirements, and using local materials such as native
redwood. Among those who have been responsible
for the further evolution of a regional tradition Har-
well Harris, the designer of this house for Mr. and
Mrs. Jerome Share, is one of the most capable and
sensitive. The plan explains itself: the entry from
the garage past the sunken garden (picture at right)
leads one ahead into the library and thence to the
living room, to the left into the kitchen, or to the
right to the bedroom corridor. It is in the subtle
expression of that plan that the design mastery be-
comes apparent: notice, for instance, the three-board
band above the head of the doors and windows,
which, in this picture at the right, is a crown for the
exterior redwood siding, and which, as the pictures
below indicate, continues info the house to give scale
to the interiors and a relationship to the outside.
Where the overhangs, to the west and south, are
especially wide they are pierced with deep wells to
let through the sky light and exclude the sunlight.
Construction is modular, with vertical battens mark-
ing the three-foot grid on the exterior.

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NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT

Along with the influences of regional characteristics
on residential architecture in the UnitecJ States, there
have been strong personal forces helping to shape
the design forms with which we are becoming familiar.
Among the several architects from abroad who hove
fitted themselves and their work to American needs.
Marcel Breuer is one of the most influential. The house
originally built for himself in New Canaan, pictured
on these pages, demonstrates all of the logic in
planning and structure, the refusal to compromise in
any way with tradition, and the highly individual
design ability which transforms a pierced wooden cube
perched on a concrete-block pedestal into a thing of

beauty and refinement. Here Breuer' uses a cantilever
on all four sides of the house; the main house above
(see plan at the right) lightly overhangs the "above-
grade basement" front and back, but with a ten-foot
abandon at the ends. Then, on the northeast corner,
a porch (photo below) is suspended by steel cables
and an outside stair is hung from it. The plan of the
upper floor of the house is very simple — the living
room occupies one end of the floor, the main bed-
room the other; in between, along a corridor lined
with storage units, dining room, kitchen-utility room,
and the smaller bedroom all face east, their windows
protected by a continuous "eyebrow."

218

NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT, continued

The almost stark simplicity of Breuer's approach to
design is as apparent in the Interiors as in the exterior.
The photograph below looks from the dining room
past the fireplace wall into the living room. Ahead
is the north wall, painted a cobalt blue while other
walls are white. The bluestone floor used as fireplace
hearth continues across the house at this point; beyond
can be seen the Haitian matting which covers the
living-room floor. At the bottom of the page is a
view from the dining room through the pass-counter,
into the kitchen. The house was planned for servant-
less entertaining, and the centrally located kitchen
is easily accessible through doorless openings.

PLEASANTVILLE, NEW YORK

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PLEASANTVIILE, NEW YORK, continued

Aside from the importance of regional factors and the
freshening and revitalizing influences from abroad,
the strongest thrust toward an appropriate contempo-
rary achitecture in the United States has come from
Frank Lloyd Wright, and now from the many young
people who have worked under him. What Wright
has taught these people (such as David Henken, whose
Brandon house is illustrated here) is an organic use
of materials, fitted to and following the lines of the
structure, as well as the site; roof forms which sweep
over and adapt themselves to the shape of the build-
ing; continual changes in scale and degree of open-
ness, depending on the size and use of the space.
The house for Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Brandon and
their two small son's is in a cooperative community
for which the site planning was done by Frank Lloyd
Wright. The plan centers around a central kitchen
"workspace" (upper left picture on facing page) con-
veniently located and adjacent to the children's play
area. The three small bedrooms, furnished with beds
convertible to day-time sofas and built-in storage
units, open into this play space by the use of folding
doors, as the picture at the upper right on the next
page shows. Clerestories add light and ventilation to
bedrooms and bath. The living room gains great
sweep and openness through a roof form which canti-
levers out over the corner looking to the south.

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CANDLEWOOD LAKE, CONN.

House design today, with its openness, its unashamed
use of natural materials, its adaptation to needs and
the site, does not in any sense result in a stereotyped
answer. The house for Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin S. Levey,
designed by William Lescaze, well indicates this fact.
The stone end wall of the living room, continuing on
beyond the fireplace which it houses, frames the large
dining room window. It is a highly personal touch in
an esthetic sense, and a very practical way to insu-
late against the hot western sun, in a functional
sense. The house plan is divided by a stone-paved
loggia, leading into the house from the carport and
opening wide to the view and the sun by a device of
angling the living room wall. All bedrooms and the
living room also face south toward the lake view.
The structure is wood frame, with exterior siding of
redwood. Heating is by forced warm air — a quickly
responding system for a house which is used, as this
one is, for summer living and winter weekends.

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WILLIAM LESCAZE, ARCHITECT

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MIDLAND, MICHIGAN

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It was in the midwest where the first impact of Fronk
Lloyd Wright's unique design talent was felt. Among
the most successful of those influenced by Wright,
going on independently since those influences, is Alden
Dow, who has mode his own personal contribution to
the architecture of the region. Unconventional but
completely logical is the plan of this house for Dr.
and Mrs. Don Irish. The rooms having the greatest
activity are located on the first floor, with the kitchen
opening to the game room so that there can be play
supervision while meals ore being prepared. The
dining room is given a sense of airiness by having
its ceiling raised into the second floor. The generous
living room occupies almost half of the upper floor,
and gains added spaciousness with its ceiling follow-
ing the pitch of the roof and glass walls on two sides
(see photograph below); it is further extended by
glass doors opening to the terrace. Separated from
the living area, and approached through a balcony
which overlooks the dining room, ore the two bed-
rooms and bath. Built on the side of a hill the house
is related to the sloping site by the pitch of the roof,
as shown in the photograph below, left.

First Floor

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In Michigan house (continued from preceding page),
trellis carries out roof line on entrance side, above.
Below, two-story dining room as seen from the balcony.

PEORIA, ILLINOIS

Among the firms practicing in the Chicago area, Paul
Schweii<her and Winston Elting have made an im-
portant, highly personal design contribution in recent
years. Influenced by the freedom from tradition and
the peculiar needs induced by the climate, which
were recognized so well by Wright and others early
in the century, houses of theirs such as the one for
Dr. and Mrs. E. C. Burhons here pictured strike a
contemporary note of their own. The low, rambling
house adjusts to a narrow lot; faces a river view.

PEORIA, ILLINOIS, continued

The Burhans house fits well not only its narrow lot,
but o sloping site which falls off steeply to a bluff
at one side. As the plan of the lower level indicates,
the garage is under the house (see lower picture on
preceding page) and from it an interior stair, as well
as the wide, inviting outside steps (shown below) lead
up to the entry. On the upper floor all principal rooms
face the view, with a screened porch thrusting out
from the house, lining up with another wide flight
of steps which go down to a terrace and an adjacent
indoor recreation room on the lower level. The roof
pitch is such that both the living-dining room (lower
photo on facing page) and the kitchen (upper photo
on that page) gain light through large glass areas
above normal window height. The skillful combina-
tion of wood forms and brick set in an unconven-
tional pattern is apparent in both the interiors of the
house and such exterior details as the overhang of
the sleeping porch and study which project over the
garage entrance (photo below). Here again choice
and handling of materials, rather than superficial
tricks of design, give a regional and at the same time
o personal character to the architecture.

UPPER LEVEL

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SCREENED PORCH

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LOUIS I. KAHN, ARCHITECT

NORRISTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

An abundant supply of local stone was largely respon-
sible for the regional flavor imparted to Pennsylvania
architecture by the early builders, both in the barns
and houses. Availability of this local building stone
has also considerably influenced modern work in the
region. Strictly contemporary forms combined with
inspired utilization of this natural material have
achieved beauty equal to, and in some instances sur-
passing, the work of earlier periods. Mr. and Mrs.
Morton Weiss, for whom Louis Kohn designed this
house in Norristown, hove a love for the countryside
with its farms and Pennsylvania Dutch barns, and a
desire for informal country living. Their site is a hill-
top one with distant views of the farming country in
all directions. The plan is basically rectangular, in-
dented at the center to create an entrance court and
a winter sun court — and also to provide a separa-
tion between the sleeping and living quarters. Utility
and circulation elements ore pulled together towards
the center of the rectangle. The inverted pitched roof
shelters two floor levels, resulting in various ceiling
heights — from seven feet at the entrance to thirteen
feet on the south side of the living room (see photo
at bottom of opposite page). One of Mr. Kahn's per-
sonal Innovations, which combines pleasantly with
the native stone and his entire design concept, is the
reversible double-hung sash. These make possible
alternating arrangements of opaque and transparent
wall panels, as shown on the facing page.

Construction is split posts with outriggers between to
support the roof overhang above, and the sunshade
below. Curtain walls of selected native sandstone,
which had been exposed to the weather on the sur-
face of a local quarry, were erected rough without
dressing. Cypress sheathing used both inside and out.

Built-in cabinets (see dining room below) and some
of the furniture were designed by architect Louis
Kahn. A radiant heating system is installed in the
concrete floor slab, and in walls and ceilings. Hall,
living and dining room floors are covered with slate;
the depressed fireplace hearth with moulded clay tile.

INDEX

In the index that follows, architects and designers are listed with their names in
capital letters. Under their names are listed the owners, the locations, and the pho-
tographers for the houses they designed. Localities for houses shown in the book
are listed alphabetically in upper and lower case letters.

AIN, GREGORY, JOSEPH JOHNSON and ALFRED DAY
Wilfong house, Altadena, California
Photos: Julius Shulmcn

Alexandria, Virginia; Charles M. Goodman, architect

Altadena, California; Gregory Ain, Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day,
orchitects

Andover, Massachusetts; Bernard Kessler, architect

ARCHITECTS ASSOCIATED (Koti, Woisman, Blumenkranz, Stein,
Weber) Dretzin house, Chappaqua, New York
Photos: Ezra Stoller, Pictor

Armonk, New York; Edgar Tafel, architect

ARMSTRONG, HARRIS

Armstrong house, Jefferson County, Missouri
Photos: Robert Frei

Atlanta, Georgia: Stevens & Wilkinson, architects

Baltimore, Maryland; Alexander S. Cochran, architect

BEIDLER, PAUL

Rose house, Easton, Pennsylvania
Photos: Lionel Freedmon, Pictor

BELLUSCHI, PIETRO

Burkes house, Portland, Oregon
Photos: Roger Sturtevant

Moore house, Portland, Oregon
Photos: Roger Sturtevant

Belvedere, California; Francis Joseph McCarthy, architect

Belvedere, California; John Funk, architect

Bellevue, Washington; Chiarelli & Kirk, architects

Bensenville, Illinois; George Fred Keck — William Keck, architects

Beverly Hills, California; Douglas Honnold, architect

Big Hill, Kentucky; W. Donforth Ccmpton, designer

BOGNER, WALTER F. and CARLETON R. RICHMOND, Jr.
Schwann house, Lincoln, Mossochuset's
Photos: Lionel Freedmon, Pictor

BREUER, MARCEL

Breuer house. New Canaan, Connecticut
Photos: John Corcoran; P. E. Guerrero

Geller house, Lawrence, Long Island, New York
Photos: Ezra Stoller, Pictor

Candlewood Lake, Connecticut; William Lescoze, architect

Carmel, California; Gordon Droke, designer

Cormel, California; Henry Hill, designer

132
20
62

132
182

100
44

164

180

149

210

176

140

126

218

26
224
144

Choppaqua, New York; Architects Associated (Katz, Waismon,

Blumenkranz, Stein, Weber), architects 100

CHIARELLI & KIRK

Balch house, Seattle, Washington

Photos: Larry Novak 74

McLean house, Bellevue, Washington

Photos: Charles R. Pearson 90

CLARK & FREY

Frey house. Palm Springs, California

Photos: Julius Shulman ^36

COCHRAN, ALEXANDER S.

Cochran house, Baltimore, Maryland

Photos: Andre Kertesz; Katherine Ford 22

Colorado Springs, Colorado; Jan Ruhtenberg, designer 17

Colorado Springs, Colorado; Jan Ruhtenberg, designer 204

COMPTON, W. DANFORTH

Franke house. Big Hill, Kentucky

Photos: W. Donforth Compton 126

CORBETT, MARIO

Crocker house, Sousalito, California

Photos: Ernest Braun 10

Dallas, Texos; DeWitt & Swank, architects 76

DAVIDSON, J. R.

Davidson house, Los Angeles, California

Photos: Julius Shulman 42

Dsdham, Massachusetts; Johnson & Whitcomb, architects 207

Denver, Colorado; Victor Hornbein, architect 205

DEWITT & SWANK

American Home Realty house, Dallas, Texas

Photos: Ulric Meisel, Photo Associates 76

DICKINSON, WOODBRIDGE, Jr. & LAWRENCE TEST
Dickinson house, Posodeno, California
Photos: Julius Shulman 146

DOW, ALDEN B.

Irish house. Midland, Michigan

Photos: Elmer L. Astleford 226

DRAKE, BLAINE

Kumler house. Phoenix, Arizona

Photos: Julius Shulman 203

Owen house. Phoenix, Arizona

Photos: Julius Shulman • 158

DRAKE, GORDON

Miller house, Carmel, California

Photos: Morley Boer 144

Spillmon house, Los Angeles, California

Photos: Julius Shulman 189

235

EAMES, CHARLES

Eames house. Pacific Palisades, California

Photos: Charles Eames 186

Easton, Pennsylvania; Paul Beidler, architect 180

ESHERICK, JOSEPH

Holt house, Stockton, California

Photos: Roger Sturtevant 161

Walker house. Lake Tahoe, California

Photos: Roger Sturtevant 52

FUNK, JOHN

Kirby house. Belvedere, Californio

Photos: Roger Sturtevant 88

GUSS, J.

Glass house, San Antonio, Texas

Photos: Photo Associates 168

GOODMAN, CHARLES M.

Hollin Hills, Alexandria, Virginia

Photos: Robert C. Lautman 62

Sevoreid house, Alexandria, Virginia
Photos: Rodney McCoy Morgan

Great Neck, Long Island, New York; Antonin Raymond and L. L. Rodo,
architects

Greenwich, Connecticut; Edward D. Stone, architect; Karl J. Holzinger;
Roy S. Johnson, Associates

Hanover, New Hampshire; E. H. and M. K. Hunter, architects

HARRIS, HARWELL HAMILTON

Loeb house, Redding, Connecticut
Photos: Andre Kertesz

Share house, Los Angeles, California
Photos: Maynard Parker

HENKEN, DAVID T.

Brandon house, Pleasontville, New York
Photos: Andre Kertesz

Highland Park, Illinois; L. Morgan Yost, architect

HILL, HENRY

Cosmos house, Kentfield, California
Photos: Morley Boer

Hill house, Carmel, California
Photos: Roger Sturtevant

Hillsborough, California; Clarence W. Mayhew, architect

HOMSEY, VICTORINE ond SAMUEL

Siner house, Wilmington, Delaware

HONNOLD, DOUGLAS

Greene house, Beverly Hills, California
Photos: Julius Shulmon

Harkness house, Los Angeles, California
Photos: Julius Shulman •

HORNBEIN, VICTOR

House in Denver, Colorado
Photos: Good Housekeeping

Houston, Texas; Mac Kie & Kamrath, architects

104

31
114

173
216

221
96

58
128

213

140
49

205
71

HUNTER, E. H. and M. K.

Murtogh house, Hanover, New Hampshire

Photos: Ezra Stoller, Pictor 114

Jefferson County, Missouri; Harris Armstrong, orchitect 54

JOHNSON, PHILIP C.

Johnson house, New Conoon, Connecticut

Photos: Lionel Freedmon, Pictor; Arnold Newman 8

JOHNSON & WHITCOMB

House in Dedhom, Massachusetts

Photo: Deorborn-Mossar 207

JONES, A. QUINCY, Jr.

Huistendahl house, San Diego, California

Photos: Robert C. Clevelond; Moynord Parker, Modern

Photography 68

KAHN, LOUIS I.

Weiss house, Norristown, Pennsylvania

Photos: John Ebstel 232

KAMPHOEFNER HENRY L.: GEORGE MATSUMOTO, ASSOCIATE
Komphoefner house, Raleigh, North Carolina
Photos: Andre Kertesz 154

Kansas City, Missouri; Runnells, Clark, Waugh & Motsumoto,

architects 134

KASSLER, KENNETH

Two houses in Princeton, New Jersey 206

KECK, GEORGE FRED

Fogen house. Lake Forest, Illinois

Photos: Hedrich-Blessing Studio 85

KECK, GEORGE FRED - WILLIAM KECK
Spence house, Bensenville, Illinois
Photos: Hedrich-Blessing Studio 176

Kelleys Island, Ohio; Ernst Payer, architect 56

Kentfield, California; Henry Hill, designer 92

KESSLER, BERNARD

House in Andover, Massachusetts

Photos: Joseph W. Molitor 182

Kirkwood, Missouri; Wischmeyer & Lorenz, architects 39

KNOWLTON, ALEXANDER

Roen house, Orlando, Florida

Photos: Tom Leonard 66

Lake Forest, Illinois; George Fred Keck, architect 85

Lake Tohoe, California; Joseph Esherick, architect 52

LANGHORST, FRED

Ker house, San Rafael, California

Photos: Roger Sturtevant 14

Lawrence, Long Island, New York; Marcel Breuer, architect 26

LESCAZE, WILLIAM

Levey house, Condlewood Lake, Connecticut

Photos: Ben Schnall 224

Lexington, Massachusetts; Hugh Stubbins, Jr., architect 46

Lincoln, Massachusetts; Walter F. Bogner and Carlton R. Richmond,

Jr., architects 40

236

LITTLE, ROBERT M.

Little house, Miami, Florida

Photos: Rudi Rodo 36

Los Angeles, California; J. R. Davidson, designer 42

Lot Angeles, California; Gordon Drake, designer 189

Los Angeles, California; Harwell Hamilton Harris, designer 216

Los Angeles, California; Douglas Honnold, architect 49

lot Angeles, California; Carl Moston, architect 1 23

Los Angeles, California; Raphael Soriano, architect 196

Los Angeles, California; Rodney A. Walker, designer 194

LYNDON, MAYNARD

Lyndon house, Malibu, California

Photos: Maynord Lyndon 200

MAC KIE & KAMRATH

Frank Sharp Company house, Houston, Texas

Photos: Dorsey & Peters; Hence Griffith 71

Malibu, California; Maynord Lyndon, architect 200

MASTON, CARL LOUIS

Moston house, Los Angeles, Colifornio

Photos: Julius Shulman 123

MAYHEW, CLARENCE W.

Hale house, Hillsborough, California

Photos: Roger Sturtevant 128

McCarthy, francis joseph

Rowley house. Belvedere, California

Photos: Roger Sturtevant 98

Miami, Florida; Robert M. Little, architect 36

Miami, Florida; Igor Polevitzky, architect 170

Midland, Michigan; Alden B, Dow, architect 226

Minneapolis, Minnesota; Thorshov & Cerny, orchitects 106

Minneapolis, Minnesota; Thorshov & Cerny, architects 120

Montecito, California; Richard J. Neutro, architect 80

NEUTRA, RICHARD J.

Tremoine house, Montecito, California

Photos; Julius Shulman 80

New Conoon, Connecticut; Marcel Breuer, architect 218

New Canaan, Connecticut; Philip C. Johnson, designer 8

Norristown, Pennsylvania; Louis I. Kahn, architect 232

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Robert W. Vahlberg (Vohlberg, Palmer,

Vohlberg), architect 13

Orlando, Florida; Alexander Knowlton, architect 66

Pacific Palisades, Colifornio; Charles Eames, designer 186

Palm Springs, California; Clark & Frey, architects 136

Pasadena, California; Woodbridge Dickinson, Jr., and

Lawrence Test, architects 146

PAYER, ERNST

Jones house, Kelleys Islond, Ohio

Photos: Horry Ittner 56

Peoria, Illinois; Schweikher & Elting, architects 229

Phoenix, Arizona; Blaine Drake, architect 158

Phoenix, Arizona; Blaine Drake, architect 203

Pleosontville, New York; David T. Henken, designer 221

POLEVITZKY, IGOR

Heller house, Miami, Florida

Photos: Rudi Rodo 170

Portland, Oregon; Pietro Belluschi, architect 149

Portland, Oregon; Pietro Belluschi, architect 210

Princeton, New Jersey; Kenneth Kassler, architect (two houses) 206

RADO, L. L. (see Raymond, Antonin)

Raleigh North Carolina; Henry L. Komphoefner, architect:

George Motsumoto, associate 154

RAYMOND, ANTONIN & L. L. RADO

Krakouer house. Great Neck, Long Island, New York

Photos: L. L. Rado 104

Rosen house. Great Neck, Long Island, New York

Photos; L. L. Rodo 104

Redding, Connecticut; Harwell Hamilton Harris, designer 173

RICHMOND, CARLETON R., Jr. (see Bogner, Walter f.)

RUHTENBERG, JAN

Howbert house, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Photos: Guy Burgess 204

Ruhtenberg house, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Photos, Guy Burgess 17

RUNNELLS, CLARK, WAUGH & MATSUMOTO
Clark house, Kansas City, Missouri
Photos: Gene Hook 134

Son Antonio, Texas; J. Gloss, designer 168

San Diego, California; A. Quincy Jones, Jr., architect 68

Son Pedro, California; Sumner Spaulding and John Rex, architects 116

Son Rafael, California; Fred Langhorst, architect 14

Sausalito, California; Mario Corbett, architect 10

SCHWEIKHER & ELTING

Burhons house, Peoria, Illinois

Photos: Hedrich-Blessing Studio ' 229

Upton house, Scottsdale, Arizona

Photos: Julius Shulman 166

Scottsdale, Arizona; Schweikher & Elting, architects 166

Seattle, Washington; Chiorelli & Kirk, architects 74

Seattle, Washington; Paul Thiry, architect 130

Shreveport, Louisiana; Samuel G. & William B. Wiener, architects 178

Shreveport, Louisiana; William B. Wiener, architect 16

SORIANO, RAPHAEL

Case Study house, Los Angeles, California

Photos: J. Reed 196

SPAULDING, SUMNER ond JOHN REX

Ekdale house. Son Pedro, Colifornio

PhDtos: Julius Shulman 116

237

STEVENS & WILKINSON

Wilkinson house, Atlanta, Georgia

Photos: William M. Branham 164

Stockton, California; Joseph Esherick, architect 161

Stockton, California; Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, orchitects 111

STONE, EDWARD D.: KARL J. HOLZINGER, ROY S. JOHNSON,
ASSOCIATES

Grant house, Greenwich, Connecticut
Photos: Lionel Freedman 31

Royburn house. White Plains, New York

Photos: Lionel Freedman 192

STUBBINS, HUGH, Jr.

Stubbins house, Lexington, Mossochusettt

Photos: Ezra Stoller, Pictor 46

TAFEL, EDGAR

Lindstrom house, Armonk, New York

Photos: Lionel Freedman; Robert Meservey 44

TEST, LAWRENCE (see Dickinson, Woodbridge, Jr.)

THIRY, PAUL

McDonald house, Seattle, Washington

Photos: Charles R. Pearson 130

THORSHOV & CERNY

Blackmun house, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Photos: Photography, Inc. 120

Challman house, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Photos: Photography, Inc.

106

VAHLBERG, ROBERT W. (VAHLBERG, PALMER, VAHLBERG)
Chopmon house, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Photos: Meyers Photo Shop 13

WALKER, RODNEY A.

Walker house, Los Angeles, California

Photos: Julius Shulmon 194

White Plains, New York; Edward D. Stone, architect; Karl J. Hoizinger

and Roy S. Johnson, associates 192

WIENER, SAMUEL G. & WILLIAM B.

Gamm house, Shreveport, Louisiana

Photos: Ulric Meisel, Photo Associates 178

WIENER, WILLIAM B.

Davidson house, Shreveport, Louisiana

Photos: Ulric Meisel, Photo Associates 16

Wilmington, Delaware; Victorine and Samuel Homsey, architects 213

WISCHMEYER & LORENZ

FitZ'Gerald house, Kirkwood, Missouri

Photos: Lorenz; Lawrence 39

WURSTER, BERNARDI and EMMONS

Smith house, Stockton, California

Photos: Roger Sturtevant 111

YOST, L. MORGAN

Deno house. Highland Pork, Illinois

Photos: Nowelt Ward & Associates 96

238

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS

The following photographers, whose work is represented in this book, deserve great
credit for illustrative interpretation of the American house today. The authors and
the architects and designers appreciate their cooperation.

ELMER L ASTLEFORD, 16864 Chatham Ave., Detroit 19, Michigan

MORLEY BAER, Post Office Box 52, Carmel, California

WILLIAM M. BRANHAM, 1554 Piedmont N.W., Atlanta, Georgia

GUY BURGESS, 126 North Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, Colorado

ERNEST BRAUN, 1918 46th Ave., Son Francisco, California

ROBERT C. CLEVELAND, 670 Rodcliffe Ave., Pacific Palisodes, California

JOHN CORCORAN: deceased

DEARBORN-MASSAR, 16767 Maplewild Ave., S.W., Seattle 66, Washington

DORSEY & PETERS, 317 W. Cowan Drive, Houston, Texas

JOHN EBSTEL, 544 6th Ave., New Yoric, New York

LIONEL FREEDMAN, 38 E. Fourth St., New York, New York

ROBERT FREI, St. Louis, Missorui

HENCE GRIFFITH, 2007 Bryan St., Dallas, Texas

PEDRO GUERRERO, 175 West 94th St., New York, New York

HEDRICH-BLESSING, 450 East Ohio St., Chicago 11, Illinois

GENE HOOK, Kansas City, Missouri

HARRY ITTNER, Williamson Building, Cleveland, Ohio

ANDRE KERTESZ, 31 Union Square, New York, New York

ROBERT C. LAUTMAN, 2118 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.

rOM LEONARD, 155 West 56th Street, New York 19, New York

ULRIC MEISEL, Photo Associates, 3303 Oak Lone, Dallas, Texas

MEYERS PHOTOSHOP, 325 North Robinson, Oklohomo City, Oklahoma

ROBERT MESERVEY, 19 Christopher St., New York 14, New York

RODNEY McCAY MORGAN, Photolog, 527 East 72nd St., New York, New York

JOSEPH W. MOLITOR, 10 Eost 39th St., New York, New York

ARNOLD NEWMAN, 39 W. 67th St., New York, New York

LARRY NOVAK, 705 Broadway, Seattle, Washington

MAYNARD PARKER, 2230 Le Moyne St., Los Angeles, California

CHARLES R. PEARSON, 1305 3rd Ave., Seottle, Washington

PHOTOGRAPHY, INC., 924 Second Avenue, South Minneapolis, Minnesota

RUDI RADA, 5941 Coral Way, Coral Gables, Florida

J. REED, 6633 Sunset, Los Angeles, California

BEN SCHNALL, 19 W. 44th St., New York, New York

JULIUS SHULMAN, P. O. Box 8656, Los Angeles 46, California

EZRA STOLLER, Pictorial Services, Inc., 307 E. 37th St., New York 16, New York

ROGER STURTEVANT, 730 Montgomery St., San Froncisco, Californio

NOWELL WARD, 450 Oakdale Ave., Chicago 14, Illinois

239

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